,,mammonart ,an ,essay in ,economic ,interpretation ,,by ,,upton ,,sinclair ,,published ,,by ,,the ,,author ,,pasadena1 ,,california ,,copyright1 #aibd1 #aibe ,,by ,,upton ,,sinclair ,first edition1 ,february1 #aibe1 #d1jjj copies1 clothbound1 #d1jjj copies1 paperbound4 ,,contents ,,chapter ,,page ,i4 ,ogi1 the ,son of ,og #a ,,ii4 ,who ,owns the ,artists8 #g ,,iii4 ,art and ,personality #aa ,,iv4 ,the ,laborer and ,his ,hire #ad ,v4 ,the ,lord's ,anointed #af ,,vi4 ,artificial ,childhood #ai ,,vii4 ,mrs4 ,ogi ,emerges #ba ,,viii4 ,the ,horse-,trade #bc ,,ix4 ,the ,class ,lie #be ,x4 ,mrs4 ,ogi ,orders ,jazz #bg ,,xi4 ,the ,populist ,convention #bi ,,xii4 ,kansas and ,judea #cb ,,xiii4 ,the ,communist ,almanac #ce ,,xiv4 ,god's ,propaganda #ch ,,xv4 ,mrs4 ,prestonia ,orders ,plumbing #dj ,,xvi4 ,mrs4 ,ogi ,orders ,etiquette #db ,,xvii4 ,william ,randolph ,alcibiades #de ,,xviii4 ,the ,age of ,hero-,worship #df ,,xix4 ,hundred ,per ,cent ,athenian #di ,,xx4 ,the ,funny ,man of ,reaction #eb ,,xxi4 ,athens and ,los ,angeles #ef ,,xxii4 ,the ,slave ,empire #eh ,,xxiii4 ,dumb ,pious neas #fj ,,xxiv4 ,the ,roman ,four ,hundred #fc ,,xxv4 ,the ,american ,empire #fh ,,xxvi4 ,the ,christian ,revolution #gj ,,xxvii4 ,the ,ins and the ,outs #ga ,,xxviii4 ,the ,heaven of ,elegance #gd ,,xxix4 ,the ,muckraker's ,hell #gg ,,xxx4 ,the ,pious ,poisoners #hj ,,xxxi4 ,the ,papal ,paymasters #hd ,,xxxii4 ,who ,is ,crazy8 #hh ,,xxxiii4 ,ogi1 ,anglomaniac #ib ,,xxxiv4 ,phosphorescence and ,decay #ie ,,xxxv4 ,the ,good ,man ,theory #ih ,,xxxvi4 ,comic ,relief #aja ,,xxxvii4 ,praise for ,puritans #aje ,,xxxviii4 ,comrade's ,progress #aaj ,,xxxix4 ,vanity ,fair #aac ,,xl4 ,glory ,propaganda #aaf ,,xli4 ,unbridled ,desires #abj ,,xlii4 ,the ,harpooner of ,hypocrisy #abd ,,xliii4 crasez l',infame #acj ,,xliv4 ,the ,trumpeter of ,revolution #ace ,,xlv4 ,the ,harvard ,manner #aci ,,xlvi4 ,the ,poisoned ,rat #adb ,,xlvii4 ,virtue ,rewarded #add ,,xlviii4 ,the ,good ,fellow's ,code #adf ,,xlix4 ,the ,gauger of ,genius #adh ,l4 ,the ,brain ,proprietor #aej ,,li4 ,politics ,is ,fate #aed ,,lii4 ,behind the ,hedge-,rows #aei ,,liii4 ,tory ,romance #afc ,,liv4 ,the ,meaning of ,magic #afg ,,lv4 ,the ,tory ,whip #aga ,,lvi4 ,the ,fear ,that ,kills #agc ,,lvii4 ,the ,first ,lord of ,letters #age ,,lviii4 ,the ,angel of ,revolt #agh ,,lix4 ,the ,stable-,keeper's ,son #ahc ,,lx4 ,the ,predatory ,artist #aij ,,lxi4 ,the ,old ,communard #aid ,,lxii4 ,tyger1 ,tyger6 #aii ,,lxiii4 ,the ,child of ,his ,age #bjb ,,lxiv4 ,prayer in ,adultery #bjd ,,lxv4 ,main ,street in ,france #bjf ,,lxvi4 ,the ,mattress ,grave #bji ,,lxvii4 ,siegfried-,bakunin #baa ,,lxviii4 ,the ,gospel of ,silence #baf ,,lxix4 ,the ,lullaby ,laureate #bbj ,,lxx4 ,high-,brow ,society #bbe ,,lxxi4 ,official ,pessimism #bbh ,,lxxii4 ,god ,save the ,people #bca ,,lxxiii4 ,the ,collector of ,snobs #bcc ,,lxxiv4 ,arts and ,crafts #bcf ,,lxxv4 ,seeing ,america ,first #bci ,,lxxvi4 ,the ,age of ,innocence #bdb ,,lxxvii4 ,a ,snow-,bound ,saint #bdd ,,lxxviii4 ,puritanism in ,decay #bdf ,,lxxix4 ,the ,angel ,israfel #bdi ,,lxxx4 ,the ,good ,grey ,poet #bec ,,lxxxi4 ,cabbage ,soup #beh ,,lxxxii4 ,dead ,souls #bfj ,,lxxxiii4 ,the ,russian ,hamlet #bfc ,,lxxxiv4 ,the ,dead-,house #bfe ,,lxxxv4 ,the ,christian ,bull-,dog #bfh ,,lxxxvi4 ,the ,peasant ,count #bga ,,lxxxvii4 ,headaches and ,dyspepsia #bgf ,,lxxxviii4 ,the ,troughs of ,zolaism #bgi ,,lxxxix4 ,the ,sportive ,demon #bhc ,,xc4 ,the ,foe of ,formulas #bhe ,,xci4 ,the ,biological ,superior #bhi ,,xcii4 ,the ,overman #bia ,,xciii4 ,the ,octopus ,cities #bie ,,xciv4 ,the ,inspired ,parrakeet #bih ,,xcv4 ,the ,green ,carnation #cjb ,,xcvi4 ,the ,white ,chrysanthemum #cjg ,,xcvii4 ,the ,duel of ,wit #cab ,,xcviii4 ,the ,cultured-,class ,historian #caf ,,xcix4 ,the ,premier ,novelist #cbb ,c4 ,the ,uncrowned ,king #cbf ,,ci4 ,smiling ,america #ccc ,,cii4 ,the ,eminent ,tankard-,man #ccg ,,ciii4 ,the ,soldier of ,fortune #cda ,,civ4 ,the ,bowery ,boy #cde ,,cv4 ,the ,california ,octopus #cdi ,,cvi4 ,the ,old-,fashioned ,american #cec ,,cvii4 ,badgad-on-the-,subway #ceg ,,cviii4 ,supermanhood #cfc ,,cix4 ,the ,stealthy ,nemesis #cgb ,,cx4 ,the ,rebel ,immortal #cgi ,,cxi4 ,a ,text-,book for ,russia #chc ,,mammonart ,,chapter ,i ,,ogi1 ,,the ,,son ,,of ,,og ,one evening in the year minus ninety-eight thousand and seventy-six--that is1 one hundred thousand years ago--,ogi1 the son of ,og1 sat in front of a blazing fire in the cave1 licking his greasy lips and wiping his greasy fingers upon the thick brown hair of his chest4 ,the grease on ,ogi's lips and fingers had come from a chunk out of an aurochs1 which ,ogi had roasted on a sharpened stick before the fire4 ,the tribe had been hunting that day1 and ,ogi himself had driven the spear through the eye of the great creature4 ,being young1 he was a hero2 and now he had a hero's share of meat in him1 and sat before the fire1 sleepy-eyed1 retracing in dull1 slow revery the incidents of the hunt4 ,in his hand was the toasting-stick1 and he toyed with it1 making marks upon the ground4 ,presently1 half involuntarily1 there came a pattern into these marks3 a long mark--that was how the body of the aurochs went2 two marks in front1 the forelegs of the aurochs2 two marks in back1 the hind legs2 a big scratch in front1 the head4 ,and suddenly ,ogi found a thrill running over him4 ,there was the great beast before him1 brought magically back to life by markings in the dirt4 ,ogi had made the first picture6 ,but then terror seized him4 ,he lived in a world of terror1 and always had to act before he dared to think4 ,hastily he scratched over the dirt1 until every trace of the magic beast was gone4 ,he gazed behind him1 expecting to see the spirit of the aurochs1 summoned into the cave by this fearful new magic4 ,he glanced at the other members of his tribe1 crouching sleepily about the fire1 to see if they had noticed his daring venture4 ,but nothing evil happened2 the meat in ,ogi's stomach did not develop bad spirits that summer night1 neither did the lightning poke him with its dagger1 nor a tree-limb crash upon his head4 ,therefore1 next evening a temptation came upon him2 he remembered his marks1 and ventured to bring back his magic aurochs1 and sit before the fire and watch him toss his head and snort at his enemies4 ,as time passed ,ogi did a thing yet bolder2 he made a straight up-and-down mark1 with two prongs underneath1 and a round circle on top2 ,ogi himself1 a double ,ogi1 with his long spear stopping the monster's charge6 ,even that did not prove bad magic2 ,ogi did not sicken1 no lightning-daggers or tree-branches struck him4 ,with practice1 another idea came2 he indicated the body of the aurochs by two marks1 one above and one below1 where the creature vanished into space4 ,between these were other scratches indicating a shaggy coat2 and in the head a round spot1 with a black hole punched deep by the toasting-stick--the eye of the monster1 glaring balefully at ,ogi1 and filling him with such thrills as had never before passed along the nerves of a living organism4 ,of course such big magic could not long remain a secret4 ,ogi was irresistibly driven to show his homemade aurochs to the tribe1 and there was a tremendous commotion4 ,it was a miracle1 all made clear by their gruntings2 they knew the monster instantly--an aurochs1 and nothing else6 ,they cried out with delight at the cleverness of the representation4 7,and ninety-nine thousand1 nine hundred and sixty-six years later1 when the writer was a little boy1 he used to see in a certain home of wealth which he visited1 three pictures hanging in the dining-room1 and appealing to gastronomic emotions4 ,one picture represented several peaches on a platter1 another represented half a dozen fish on a string1 the third showed two partridges hanging by their necks4 ,the members of the tribe of ,ogi1 now called the ,merchants and ,manufacturers ,association of ,baltimore1 would gather at supper parties and marvel at this big magic4 ,here were works of art1 and all knew they were works of art1 and knew exactly why2 they would say of the fish3 8,you can see the very shine of the scales60 ,of the peaches3 8,you can rub the fuzz off them60 ,of the birds3 8,you can bury your hands in the feathers607 ,but when the first thrills had passed1 the dwellers in the cave with ,ogi fell victims to panic4 ,an aurochs was a fearful and destructive beast2 it was hard enough to have to kill him for food--but now to bring back his angry spirit was tempting fate4 ,in the ,holy ,mountain fronting the cave dwelt the ,great ,hunter1 who made all aurochs1 and would be jealous of usurpers4 ,the ,witch ,doctor of the tribe1 who visited the ,great ,hunter and made spells for good luck--he was the proper person to make magic1 and not an up-start boy4 ,so the ,witch ,doctor trampled out the drawing of ,ogi1 and the ,old ,man of the tribe1 who made the laws1 drove him out from the cave1 and into the night where the sabre-toothed tiger roamed4 7,and last winter the writer stood one night at #dcrd ,street and ,broadway1 a busy corner of ,new ,york1 and across the front of a building a whole block long he beheld great letters of violet fire1 spelling three words3 ,,the ,,ten ,,commandments4 ,he entered the building1 and there upon a silver screen he saw a flash of lightning1 followed by a burst of clouds and a terrifying clatter of stage thunder1 and out of the lightning and clouds and thunder was unrolled before his eyes the ,second ,commandment3 ,thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image1 or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above1 or that is in the earth beneath1 or that is in the water under the earth47 ,ogi found a cave of his own1 and escaped the sabre-tooth tiger4 ,and not all the furies of the ,witch ,doctor1 nor even the ,ten ,commandments of the ,great ,hunter1 could take from his mind the memory of those delicious thrills which had stolen over him when he made the magic aurochs in the dirt4 ,being now alone1 he had time for magic1 and he got red stones and covered the walls of his cave with pictured beasts of many sorts4 ,and presently came young men from the tribe1 and beholding what he had done1 they took to visiting him in secret to share the forbidden thrills4 7,and on ,main ,street in our ,great ,city1 ,i can take you to a cave with letters of fire over the top1 called an 8arcade10 and you may go in1 and find the magic of ,ogi hidden in little boxes1 into which you drop a token made of copper1 and see what is to be seen4 ,one part of this cave is labeled1 ,for ,men ,only4 ,i have never been into this part1 and therefore do not know what magic the descendants of ,ogi have there hidden2 but it is interesting to know that a nerve channel1 once established in a living organism1 can be handed down through generations to the number of three thousand1 three hundred and thirty-three47 ,now in the course of time it happened that there was war in the tribe between the ,old ,man and the ,next ,oldest ,man2 and also between the ,old ,witch ,doctor and the ,next ,doctor4 ,the rebels1 having learned about the magic of ,ogi1 desired to make use of it4 ,there was a secret meeting1 at which the rebel ,witch ,doctor declared that he had had an interview with the ,great ,hunter on the ,holy ,mountain1 and the ,great ,hunter ,himself had given ,ogi power to make the magic aurochs1 and to kill them in magic hunts4 ,in other words1 said the ,witch ,doctor1 ,ogi was an ,inspired ,artist2 and if he and his friends would help the new party into power1 ,ogi would become ,court ,painter1 and his scratches would be raised to the status of ,ritual4 ,needless to say1 ,ogi was delighted at that1 and likewise his friends1 some of whom had learned to make scratches almost as good as ,ogi's1 and who desired now to become ,inspired ,artists1 and to decorate the cave walls and weapons of the tribe4 ,but one provision must be made clear1 said the rebel ,witch ,doctor2 ,ogi and his friends must understand that they were to glorify the magic of this particular ,witch ,doctor4 ,when they portrayed hunting1 they must make it plain that it was the new ,old ,man who was head of the hunt2 they must make him wonderful and fearful to the tribe4 ,ogi and his pupils answered that so long as they were permitted to make drawings of aurochs and of hunters1 it made not the slightest difference what aurochs and what hunters they portrayed4 ,art was a thing entirely aloof from politics and propaganda4 ,and so the bargain was settled2 the banner of insurrection was raised1 and the new ,old ,man became head of the tribe1 and the new ,witch ,doctor set up his magic behind the aurochs-skin curtains in the far end of the cave2 and ,ogi made many pictures of both of them4 7,and ,i have walked through the palaces of kings1 and through temples and cathedrals in many lands1 and have seen long rows of portraits of the ,old ,men of many tribes1 clad in robes of gorgeous colors1 and wearing upon their heads crowns of gold and flashing jewels2 they were called kings and emperors and dukes and earls and princes and captains of industry and presidents of chambers of commerce4 ,i have seen also the portraits and statues of ,witch ,doctors of many varieties of magic2 they were called popes and priests and cardinals and abbots and college presidents and doctors of divinity4 ,and always the paintings were called ,old ,masters47 ,so ,ogi became ,court ,painter and painted the exploits of his tribe4 ,and when the tribe went out to battle with other tribes1 ,ogi made pictures to show the transcendent beauty of his tribe1 and the unloveliness of the tribe they were to destroy4 7,and when my tribe went out to battle1 its highly paid magazine illustrators made pictures of noble-faced maidens shouting war-cries1 and it was called a ,liberty ,bond ,campaign4 ,and the story-tellers of my tribe became martial1 and called themselves ,vigilantes47 ,now ,ogi throve greatly1 developing his technique1 so that he could show all kinds of beasts and men4 ,the fame of his magic spread1 and other tribes came to visit the caves and to marvel at his skill1 and to gaze reverently upon the ,inspired ,artist4 7,and in a certain hotel restaurant in ,new ,york ,i was admitted behind the magic red cord which separates the great from the unheard of1 and sitting at a table my companion enlightened me with discreet nods and whispers1 saying3 8,that is ,heywood ,broun2 and next to him is ,rita ,weiman2 and that's ,mencken just coming in2 and that round little man in the brown suit and the big spectacles is ,hergesheimer407 ,the fame of ,ogi1 and the magic of which he was master1 brought thrills to the young women of the tribe1 and they cast themselves at his feet1 and so his talent was not lost to future generations4 7,and in the galleries of ,europe ,i gazed upon miles of madonnas--madonnas mournful and madonnas smiling1 madonnas with wavy golden hair and madonnas with straight black hair--but never a madonna that was not plump1 manicured and polished and robed in silks and satins1 as became the mistresses of court painters1 and of popes and cardinals and abbots able to pay for publicity47 ,the sons and grandsons of ,ogi cultivated his magic1 and found new ways to intensify the thrills of art4 ,they learned to make clay figures1 and to carve the ,old ,men of the tribe and the ,witch ,doctors out of wood and stone4 7,and just before the war1 being in ,berlin1 ,i was taken by a friend for a drive down the ,sieges ,alle1 between rows of white marble monsters in halberd and helm and cowl and royal robes1 brandishing sceptres and mitres1 battle-axes and two-bladed swords4 ,being myself a barbarian1 ,i ventured to titter at this spectacle2 whereupon my friend turned pale1 and put his fingers upon my lips1 indicating the driver of the hack1 and whispering how more than once it had happened that presumptuous barbarians who tittered at the ,old ,men of the ,hohenzollern tribe had been driven by a loyal hackman straight to the police station and to jail47 ,likewise the sons of ,ogi learned to make noises in imitation of the songs of birds1 and so they were able to bring back the thrills of first love4 ,they learned to imitate the rolling of thunder1 and the clash of clubs and spears in battle fury1 and so they were able to renew the glory of the hunt and the slaughter4 7,and in the year #ahgj the ,khedive of ,egypt offered a prize of ten thousand pounds to that descendant of ,ogi who should make the most powerful magic out of his ancestral slaughterings2 and now1 throughout all civilization1 the masters of the machines of slaughter put on their honorific raiment1 and escort their pudgy wives1 bedecked with jewels1 to performances of their favorite grand opera1 8,aida407 ,likewise the descendants of ,ogi learned to enact their adventures in imitation hunts4 ,inspired by music1 they would dance about the camp-fire1 thrusting their weapons into a magic aurochs1 shouting when they saw him fall1 and licking their chops at the taste of imaginary flesh4 7,and in thirty thousand 8movie0 houses throughout the ,united ,states the tribes now gather to woo and win magic darlings of luxury1 and lick their chops over the acquirement of imaginary millions2 also to shudder at wicked ,russian ,bolsheviks with bristling beards1 at villainous 8,red0 agitators with twisted faces1 and at such other spectacles as the ,old ,men and the ,witch ,doctors prepare for them1 according to instructions from the ,great ,hunter on the ,holy ,mountain47 ,three thousand1 three hundred and thirty-three generations have passed1 and in every generation the descendants of ,ogi have had to face the problem of their relationship to the ,old ,men and the ,witch ,doctors4 ,ogi himself was a hunter1 who slew his aurochs with his own hand1 and butchered and cooked his meat before he ate it4 ,but now it has been long since any descendant of ,ogi has driven a spear through the eye of a charging aurochs4 ,they have become specialists in the imaginary2 their hands adjusted1 not to spears and stone hatchets1 but to brushes and pencils1 fountain-pens and typewriter keys4 ,so1 when they are cast out from the tribe they can no longer face the sabre-toothed tiger and find meat for themselves and their beautiful women2 so1 more than ever1 the grip of the ,old ,men and the ,witch ,doctors grows tight upon them4 ,more than ever it is required that their pictures and stories shall deal with things of which the ,old ,men and the ,witch ,doctors approve2 more than ever they are called upon to honor and praise the customs of their tribe1 as against the customs of all other tribes of men or angels4 ,,chapter ,,ii ,,who ,,owns ,,the ,,artists8 ,many and various are the art-forms which the sons and grandsons of ,ogi have invented2 but of all these forms1 the one which bores us most quickly is the parable--a little story made up for the purpose of illustrating a special lesson4 ,therefore1 ,i hasten to drop ,ogi and his sons and grandsons1 and to say in plain ,english that this book is a study of the artist in his relation to the propertied classes4 ,its thesis is that from the dawn of human history1 the path to honor and success in the arts has been through the service and glorification of the ruling classes2 entertaining them1 making them pleasant to themselves1 and teaching their subjects and slaves to stand in awe of them4 ,throughout this book the word artist is used1 not in the narrow sense popular in ,america1 as a man who paints pictures and illustrates magazines2 but in its broad sense1 as one who represents life imaginatively by any device1 whether picture or statue or poem or song or symphony or opera or drama or novel4 ,it is my intention to study these artists from a point of view so far as ,i know entirely new2 to ask how they get their living1 and what they do for it2 to turn their pockets inside out1 and see what is in them and where it came from2 to put to them the question already put to priests and preachers1 editors and journalists1 college presidents and professors1 school superintendents and teachers3 ,,who ,,owns ,,you1 ,,and ,,why8 ,the book will present an interpretation of the arts from the point of view of the class struggle4 ,it will study art works as instruments of propaganda and repression1 employed by the ruling classes of the community2 or as weapons of attack1 employed by new classes rising into power4 ,it will study the artists who are recognized and honored by critical authority1 and ask to what extent they have been servants of ruling class prestige and instruments of ruling class safety4 ,it will consider also the rebel artists1 who have failed to serve their masters1 and ask what penalties they have paid for their rebellion4 ,the book purposes to investigate the whole process of art creation1 and to place the art function in relation to the sanity1 health and progress of mankind4 ,it will attempt to set up new canons in the arts1 overturning many of the standards now accepted4 ,a large part of the world's art treasures will be taken out to the scrap-heap1 and a still larger part transferred from the literature shelves to the history shelves of the world's library4 ,since childhood the writer has lived most of his life in the world's art4 ,for thirty years he has been studying it consciously1 and for twenty-five years he has been shaping in his mind the opinions here recorded2 testing and revising them by the art-works which he has produced1 and by the stream of other men's work which has flowed through his mind4 ,his decisions are those of a working artist1 one who has been willing to experiment and blunder for himself1 but who has also made it his business to know and judge the world's best achievements4 ,the conclusion to which he has come is that mankind is today under the spell of utterly false conceptions of what art is and should be2 of utterly vicious and perverted standards of beauty and dignity4 ,we list six great art lies now prevailing in the world1 which this book will discuss3 ,lie ,number ,one3 the ,art for ,art's ,sake lie2 the notion that the end of art is in the art work1 and that the artist's sole task is perfection of form4 ,it will be demonstrated that this lie is a defensive mechanism of artists run to seed1 and that its prevalence means degeneracy1 not merely in art1 but in the society where such art appears4 ,lie ,number ,two3 the lie of ,art ,snobbery2 the notion that art is something esoteric1 for the few1 outside the grasp of the masses4 ,it will be demonstrated that with few exceptions of a special nature1 great art has always been popular art1 and great artists have swayed the people4 ,lie ,number ,three3 the lie of ,art ,tradition2 the notion that new artists must follow old models1 and learn from the classics how to work4 ,it will be demonstrated that vital artists make their own technique2 and that present-day technique is far and away superior to the technique of any art period preceding4 ,lie ,number ,four3 the lie of ,art ,dilettantism2 the notion that the purpose of art is entertainment and diversion1 an escape from reality4 ,it will be demonstrated that this lie is a product of mental inferiority1 and that the true purpose of art is to alter reality4 ,lie ,number ,five3 the lie of the ,art ,pervert2 the notion that art has nothing to do with moral questions4 ,it will be demonstrated that all art deals with moral questions2 since there are no other questions4 ,lie ,number ,six3 the lie of ,vested ,interest2 the notion that art excludes propaganda and has nothing to do with freedom and justice4 ,meeting that issue without equivocation1 we assert3 ,all art is propaganda4 ,it is universally and inescapably propaganda2 sometimes unconsciously1 but often deliberately1 propaganda4 ,as commentary on the above1 we add1 that when artists or art critics make the assertion that art excludes propaganda1 what they are saying is that their kind of propaganda is art1 and other kinds of propaganda are not art4 ,orthodoxy is my doxy1 and heterodoxy is the other fellow's doxy4 ,as further commentary we explain that the word morality is not used in its popular sense1 as a set of rules forbidding you to steal your neighbor's purse or his wife4 ,morality is the science of conduct2 and since all life is conduct it follows that all art--whether it knows it or not--deals with the question of how to be happy1 and how to unfold the possibilities of the human spirit4 ,some artists preach self-restraint1 and some preach self-indulgence2 and both are preachers4 ,some artists says that the purpose of art is beauty1 and they produce beautiful art works to demonstrate the truth of this doctrine2 when such art works are completed1 they are beautiful demonstrations of the fact that the purpose of art is to embody the artist's ideas of truth and desirable behavior4 ,what is art8 ,we shall give a definition1 and take the rest of the book to prove it4 ,we hope to prove it both psychologically1 by watching the art process at work1 and historically1 by analyzing the art works of the ages4 ,we assert3 ,art is a representation of life1 modified by the personality of the artist1 for the purpose of modifying other personalities1 inciting them to changes of feeling1 belief and action4 ,we put the further question3 ,what is great art8 ,we answer3 ,great art is produced when propaganda of vitality and importance is put across with technical competence in terms of the art selected4 ,as commentary we add that whether a certain propaganda is really vital and important is a question to be decided by the practical experience of mankind4 ,the artist may be overwhelmingly convinced that his particular propaganda is of supreme importance1 whereas the experience of the race may prove that it is of slight importance2 therefore1 what was supposed to be1 and was for centuries taken to be a sublime work of art1 turns out to be a piece of trumpery and rubbish4 ,but let the artist in the labor of his spirit and by the stern discipline of hard thinking1 find a real path of progress for the race2 let him reveal new impulses for men to thrill to1 new perils for them to overcome1 new sacrifices for them to make1 new joys for them to experience2 let him make himself master of the technique of any one of the arts1 and put that propaganda adequately and vitally before his fellows--and so1 and so alone1 he may produce real and enduring works of art4 ,,postscript ,manifestly1 all this depends upon the meaning given to the term propaganda4 ,the writer thought that he could trust his critics to look it up in the dictionary2 but during the serial publication of the book he discovered that the critics share that false idea of the word which was brought into fashion during the ,world ,war--this idea being itself a piece of propaganda4 ,our own martial fervor was of course not propaganda1 it was truth and justice2 but there crept in an evil enemy thing1 known as 8,german propaganda02 and so the word bears a stigma1 and when this book applies it to some honorable variety of teaching1 the critics say that we are 8stretching its meaning10 and being absurd4 ,but all we are doing is to use the word correctly4 ,the ,standard ,dictionary defines propaganda as3 8,effort directed systematically toward the gaining of support for an opinion or course of action40 ,this1 you note1 contains no suggestion of reprobation4 ,propaganda may be either good or bad1 according to the nature of the teaching and the motives of the teacher4 ,the ,jesuits have been carrying on a propaganda of their faith for three hundred years1 and one does not have to share this faith in order to admit their right to advocate it4 ,the present writer has for twenty-one years been carrying on a propaganda for ,socialism1 and has a sturdy conviction that his time has not been wasted4 ,we take certain opinions and courses of action for granted2 they come to us easily1 and when in a poem or other work of art we encounter the advocacy of such things1 it does not seem to us propaganda4 ,take1 for example1 that favorite theme of poets1 the following of our natural impulses2 it is pleasant to do this1 and the poet who gives such advice awakens no opposition4 ,but it is different in the case of ideas which require concentration of the attention and effort of will2 such ideas trouble and repel us1 we resent them1 and the term 8propaganda0 is our expression of resentment4 ,for example1 the old poet ,herrick advises3 ,gather ye rose-buds while ye may1 ,old time is still a-flying1 ,and this same flower that smiles today1 ,tomorrow will be dying4 ,here is an attitude of relaxation toward life2 the poet gives his advice under a beautiful simile and with alluring melody1 and therefore it is poetry4 ,if we should call it propaganda1 all critics would agree that we were 8stretching the word10 and being absurd4 ,but now1 take four lines by ,matthew ,arnold3 ,charge once more1 then1 and be dumb6 ,let the victors1 when they come1 ,when the forts of folly fall1 ,find your body by the wall4 ,here is an utterance of exactly the opposite kind1 an utterance of moral conviction and resolution2 the poet is bidding us fight for truth and justice4 ,like ,herrick1 he has chosen an effective simile1 and has put music and fervor into his message2 as poetry his lines are exactly as good as ,herrick's2 and yet1 if we called them propaganda1 how many critics would object8 ,this book will endeavor to demonstrate that exactly the same thing applies to the phenomena of the class struggle1 as they appear either in real life or in works of art4 ,it comes easy to human beings to accept society as it is1 and to admire the great and strong and wealthy4 ,on the other hand1 it gives us a painful wrench to be told that there are moral excellences and heroic splendors in the souls of unwashed and unbeautiful workingmen4 ,we resent such ideas1 and likewise the persons who persist in forcing them into our minds2 which explains why all orthodox critics agree that ,jesus and ,tolstoi are propagandists1 while ,shakespeare and ,goethe are pure and unsullied creative artists4 ,such distinction between 8art0 and 8propaganda0 is purely a class distinction and a class weapon2 itself a piece of ruling-class propaganda1 a means of duping the minds of men1 and keeping them enslaved to false standards both of art and of life4 ,,chapter ,,iii ,,art ,,and ,,personality ,we have promised to prove our thesis psychologically1 by watching the art process at work1 and historically1 by studying the art works of the ages4 ,we begin with the former task4 ,let us investigate the art process in its elemental forms1 as we have seen them in the story of ,ogi4 ,art begins as the effort of man to represent reality2 first1 for the purpose of bringing it back to his own mind1 and second1 for the purpose of making it apprehensible to others4 ,just as ,ogi would seek for ways to keep the meat of the aurochs for as long as possible so that he might eat it1 so he would keep the memory of the aurochs so that he might contemplate it4 ,and just as he would share the meat of the aurochs in a feast with his fellows1 and derive honor and advantage therefrom1 so he would use a picture of the aurochs1 or a story of the hunt1 or a song about it1 or a dance reproducing it4 ,thus we note two motives1 the second of them predominantly social4 ,it is this impulse to communicate ideas and emotions to others1 that becomes the dominant motive in art1 and is the determining factor in the greatness of art4 ,we share ,ogi's memory of the hunt1 his thrills of fear1 his furious struggle1 his triumph over a chunk of brutal and non-rational force4 ,try it on your own little ,ogis1 and you will find they never tire of hearing about the aurochs hunt2 and--here is the essential point--while hearing1 they are living in the minds of others1 they are becoming social beings4 ,so through the ages the race has developed its great civilizing force1 the sympathetic imagination1 which has brought the tribes together into nations1 and ultimately may bring the nations into the human race4 ,the pleasures which we derive from a picture or representation of reality are many and complicated4 ,there is1 first of all1 the pleasure of recognition4 ,in its cruder form it is like guessing a puzzle2 in more mature reproductions we have the pleasure of following the details4 8,that is old ,smith10 we say--8even to the wart on his nose60 ,we say3 8,you can see the shine of the fish's scales1 you can wipe the fuzz off the peach1 you can bury your hands in the birds' feathers60 ,but is that all there is to art8 ,manifestly not1 for if it were1 the sons and grandsons of ,ogi would have been put out of business by the photographic camera4 ,you can take a microscope to the product of a camera1 and discover endless more details--a bigger magic than any son or grandson of ,ogi has achieved4 ,but even supposing that a micro-photograph were the highest art1 still you could not get away from the influence of personality4 ,there would always remain the problem3 ,upon what shall the camera-lens be focussed8 ,the first artist ,i met in my life was a painter1 the late ,j4 ,g4 ,brown4 ,he used to paint pictures of newsboys and country urchins1 and the quaint-looking old fellows who loaf in cross-roads stores4 ,as a boy ,i watched him at work1 and roamed about the country with him when he selected his subjects4 ,at this distance ,i remember only two things about him1 his benevolent gray beard1 and the intense repugnance he expressed when ,i pointed out an old war veteran who had lost an arm4 ,deformity and mutilation--oh1 horrible6 ,never could an artist tolerate such a subject as that6 ,but growing older1 ,i observed that some of the world's greatest artists had made a habit of painting mutilations and deformities4 ,i saw 8,old ,masters0 portraying crucifixions and martyrdoms2 ,i saw the nightmares of ,dor1 and the war paintings of ,verestchagin4 ,so ,i understand the difference between a man who wishes to probe the deeps of the human spirit1 and one who wishes merely to be popular with children and childish-minded adults4 ,the late ,j4 ,g4 ,brown was a 8realist10 according to the popular use of the term2 that is1 having selected a subject1 he painted him exactly as he was2 but by deliberately excluding from his artistic vision everything suggesting pain and failure1 he left you as the sum total of his work an utterly false and sentimental view of life4 ,most artists go even further in imposing their personality upon their work4 ,having selected a subject1 they do not reproduce it exactly1 but modify it1 emphasizing this trait or that4 ,this process is known as 8idealizing40 ,the word is generally understood to mean making the thing more pretty1 more to the beholder's taste2 but this is a misuse of the word4 ,to idealize a subject means to modify it according to an idea1 to make it expressive of that idea1 whether pleasing or otherwise4 ,henry ,james tells a story about a portrait painter1 who takes as his subject a prominent man2 divining the fundamental cheapness and falsity of the man's character1 he paints a portrait which brings out these qualities1 and so for the first time reveals the man to the world1 and causes the man's wife to leave him4 ,that is one kind of 8idealizing02 but manifestly the portrait painter who practiced that method would have a hard time to find sitters4 ,what generally happens in such cases we saw when ,ogi was invited to portray the ,witch ,doctor and the ,old ,man of his tribe4 ,the last great hero of the ,hohenzollerns1 who paid for those white marble monsters at which ,i tittered in the ,sieges ,alle1 is cursed with a withered left arm1 a cause of agonies of humiliation to his strutting soul4 ,in his photographs you will see him carefully posed1 so that his left arm is partly turned away4 ,but how about the countless paintings he had made of himself8 ,do you imagine that the painter ever failed to supply a sound and sturdy left arm8 ,in the same way1 in the pictorial labors of all the ,ogis of ,egypt1 you will find the ruler always represented as of abnormal stature4 ,manifestly1 in a settled empire the ruler will be of smaller stature than his fighting men1 because he will be coddled in childhood2 but the smaller he becomes in reality1 the more rigid the art convention that he is big4 ,it was for offenses such as this that ,plato drove the artists out of his ,republic4 ,they were liars and pretenders1 the whole tribe1 and destroyed men's respect for truth4 ,but as a matter of fact1 this kind of idealizing of rulers and fighting men may be entirely sincere4 ,the artist is more sensitive than his fellowmen--that is what makes him an artist2 he shrinks from pain and violence1 and feels a real awe for authority4 ,he thinks his sovereign is bigger in spirit2 and so1 in making him bigger in body1 the artist is acting as a seer and philosopher1 bringing out an inner truth4 ,such is the clue to the greater part of our present-day art standards2 snobbery and subservience1 timidity and worship of tradition1 also bragging and strutting and beating of tom-toms4 ,every little tea-party poet and semi-invalid cherishes a strong and cruel dream--,nietzsche with his ,blond ,beast1 and ,carlyle with his ,hero-worship1 and ,henley with his ,song of the ,sword1 and ,kipling with his ,god of our ,fathers1 known of old1 ,lord of our far-flung battle-line4 ,,chapter ,,iv ,,the ,,laborer ,,and ,,his ,,hire ,little by little we now begin to note the outlines of ,ogi's art code4 ,two negative propositions we may consider as clear3 ,ogi does not paint the thing as it really is2 and he does not paint the thing as he sees it4 ,the former he could not do1 for he does not know what the thing really is2 and the second he would consider bad manners1 bad morals and bad taste4 ,ogi paints the thing as he thinks it ought to be2 or1 more commonly1 he paints the thing as he thinks other people ought to think it to be4 ,and now comes the question3 ,why1 having chosen his subject1 does ,ogi idealize it according to one idea1 and not according to another8 ,are such decisions matters of accident or whim8 ,assuredly not2 for human psychology has its laws1 which we can learn to understand4 ,we ask3 ,what are the laws of ,ogi1 his hand and his eye and his brain8 ,what forces determine that he shall present his 8reality0 in this way and not in that8 ,the first thing to say is3 ,don't ask ,ogi about it1 for he cannot tell you4 ,ogi is not at all what he thinks he is1 and does not produce his works of art from the motives he publishes to the world4 ,we shall find that the fellow has been almost too shrewd--he has contrived a set of pretenses so clever that he has fooled1 not merely his public1 but himself4 ,he who would produce a great work of art1 said ,milton1 must first make a work of art of his own life4 ,ogi has taken this maxim literally1 and got out a fancy line of trade-lies4 ,it is perfectly plain that the artist is a social product1 a member of a tribe and swayed by tribal impulses4 ,but you find him denying this with passion1 and picturing himself as a solitary soul dwelling in an ivory tower1 galloping through the sky on a winged horse1 visited and directed by heaven-sent messengers1 and wooed by mysterious lovely ladies called ,muses4 ,at the same time1 however1 he wants at least one lady love who is real2 and this lady love does not often share his interest in the imaginary lady loves4 ,on the contrary1 she is accustomed to point out the brutal fact that ,ogi wants three good chunks of aurochs meat every twenty-four hours2 also1 the lady herself wants a little meat--and more important yet1 she wants it served according to the best tribal conventions1 those to which she was accustomed before she ran away and married an artist4 ,the tribal law decrees that the glass on her table must be cut by hand1 even though it is cut crooked2 the linen on her table must be embroidered by hand1 because1 if it is done wholesale1 by machinery1 it is not 8art40 ,theoretically1 it is possible for an artist to produce his art-works for the approval of the imaginary ,muses2 but as a matter of fact you find that the most solitary old ,ogi has somebody1 a faithful friend1 or an old housekeeper1 or even a child1 whose approval he craves4 ,even an artist on a desert island will be thinking that some day a ship will land there2 while young and rebellious artists produce for a dream public in the future4 ,i myself did all my early work from that motive2 and in ,voltaire ,i came upon what seemed to me the cruelest sentence ever penned3 8,letters to posterity seldom reach their destination60 ,ogi must have an audience4 ,so1 in his selecting1 his idealizing1 and his other varieties of feigning1 he has always before him the problem3 ,will this please my public8 ,and to what extent8 ,and for how long8 ,there is no birth control movement in ,ogi's brain2 vast numbers of dream children are born there1 and he must select a few of them to be nourished and raised up to reality1 while he sentences the others to be starved and buried4 ,having become a professional1 living by his work1 ,ogi is under the necessity of finding an audience that will feed him4 ,and remember1 it is not merely the three chunks of aurochs meat per day1 and three more for ,mrs4 ,ogi2 it is the means of serving ,mrs4 ,ogi's meat in the fashion her social position requires4 ,surely ,i do not have to prove the proposition that ,ogi cannot produce beautiful and inspiring works of art while ,mrs4 ,ogi is raising ructions in the cave6 ,so comes the great struggle in the artist's soul1 a struggle which has gone on for three thousand1 three hundred and thirty-three generations1 and may continue for as many more4 ,among the children of ,ogi's brain are some he dearly loves1 but who will not 8sell40 ,there are others whom he despises1 but whom he knows the public will acclaim and pay for4 8,which shall it be80 ,the answers have been as various as the souls of artists4 ,we shall see how through the ages there have been hero artists and martyr artists1 men who have produced what they believed to be the best1 in the face of obloquy1 ridicule1 starvation1 even the dungeon and the stake4 ,but1 manifestly1 these conditions are not the most favorable for the birth of masterpieces4 ,to develop an art technique requires decades of practice and study4 ,to feel other persons' emotions intensely and reproduce them according to some coherent plan2 to devise new forms1 and arrange millions of musical notes or words or molecules of paint in a complex design--all this requires intense and persistent concentration4 ,men cannot do such work without leisure2 neither can they do it while they are despising themselves for doing it4 ,so we may set down the following as one of the fundamental art laws3 ,the bulk of the successful artists of any time are men in harmony with the spirit of that time1 and identified with the powers prevailing4 ,,chapter ,v ,,the ,,lord',s ,,anointed ,who pays for art8 ,the answer is that at every stage of social development there are certain groups able to pay for certain kinds of art4 ,these groups may be large or small1 but they constitute the public for that kind of art1 and determine its quality and character2 he who pays the piper calls the tune4 ,it should need no stating that ,rolls-,royce automobiles are not made according to the tastes of rag-pickers and ditch-diggers1 nor yet of poets and saints2 they are made according to the tastes of people who can afford to pay for ,rolls-,royce automobiles4 ,if our thinking about the arts were not so completely twisted by false propaganda1 it would seem an axiom to say that the first essential to understanding any art product is to understand the public which ordered and paid for that art product4 ,some arts1 of course1 are cheaper than others4 ,ballads cost nothing2 you can make one up and sing it on any street corner4 ,hence we find the ballad close to the people1 simple and human1 frequently rebellious4 ,the same thing applies to folk tales and love songs--until men take to printing them in books1 after which they develop fancy forms1 understandable only to people who have nothing to do with their time except to play with fancy things4 ,beginning with the primitive art forms1 it would be possible to arrange the arts in an ascending scale of expensiveness1 and to show that exactly in proportion to the cost of an art product is its aristocratic spirit1 its subservience to ruling class ideals4 ,of all the art forms thus far devised1 the most expensive per capita is the so-called 8grand opera02 this grandeur has to be subscribed for in advance by the 8diamond horseshoe10 and consequently there has never been such a thing as a proletarian grand opera--if you except the 8,niebelung ,ring10 which was so effectively disguised as a fairy story that nobody but ,bernard ,shaw has been able to decipher its incendiary message4 ,many years ago ,i was talking with a captain of industry1 prominent in ,new ,york political life4 ,i spoke of the corruption of the judges1 and he contradicted me with a smile4 8,our judges are not bought2 they are selected40 ,and exactly so it has been with our recognized and successful artists2 they have been men who looked up to the ruling classes by instinct1 and served their masters gladly and freely4 ,if they did not do so1 they paid the penalty by a life of conflict and exile2 if they happened to be poor and friendless1 they do not even receive the gratitude of posterity1 because their dream-children died unborn1 and were buried1 along with their parents1 in graves unknown4 8,some mute1 inglorious ,milton here may rest40 ,it will be our task to study the great art periods one after another1 taking the leading artists and showing what they were1 what they believed1 how they got their livings1 and what they did for those who paid them4 ,we shall find that everywhere they were members of their group1 sharing the interests and the prejudices1 the hates and fears1 the jealousies and loves and admirations of that group4 ,we shall find them subject to all the social stresses and strains of the time1 and fighting ardently the battles of their class4 ,for life is never a static thing1 it is always changing1 always subjecting its victims to new dangers1 forcing them to new efforts4 ,either the ruling class is threatened by the attacks of outside enemies1 or else there is a new class arising inside the community4 ,in times of internal order and prosperity1 there come luxury and idleness1 the degeneration of the tribe2 there come all sorts of novelties startling the elders--modernists sapping the old time creeds1 and flappers adopting the vices of men4 ,such evils must be corrected2 such enemies of the tribe must be put down2 and in the course of these labors1 what chance is there that the ruling classes will fail to make use of their most powerful weapon1 that of art8 ,there is simply no chance whatever4 ,ogi will be called on by his masters2 or else he will act of his own impulse--he will lead the crusade1 singing the praises of the old time ways1 8idealizing0 the ancestral heroes1 the holy saints and the founding fathers1 and pouring ridicule upon the bobbed heads of the flappers4 ,the critics will leap to ,ogi's support1 hailing him as the ,lord's own anointed1 a creator of masterpieces1 dignified1 serene1 secure in immortality4 ,this is art1 the critics will aver1 this is real1 genuine1 authentic art2 while out there in the wilderness somewhere howls a lone gray rebellious wolf1 attacking and seeking to devour everything that is beautiful and sacred in life--and the howling of this wolf is not art1 it is vile and cheap propaganda4 ,the critics are certain that the decision is purely a question of aesthetics2 and we answer that it is purely a question of class prestige4 ,they are certain that art standards are eternal2 and we answer that they are blown about by the winds of politics4 ,social classes struggle2 some lose1 and their glory fades1 their arts decay2 others win1 and set new standards1 according to their interests4 ,the only permanent factors are the permanent needs of humanity1 for justice1 brotherhood1 wisdom2 and the arts stand a chance of immortality1 to the extent that they serve such ideals4 ,,chapter ,,vi ,,artificial ,,childhood ,the reader who shares the art beliefs now prevalent in the world will be quite certain that the ideas here being expounded are fantastic and absurd4 ,among those who thus differ is a friend of mine1 a very great poet who is patiently reading the manuscript and suffering1 both for himself1 and for all poets who will follow him4 ,he writes3 8,there is and should be such a thing as the enjoyment of what we are pleased to term #8pure' beauty40 ,and again3 8,you must believe either that we have a right to play1 in which case the poet-who-doesn't-preach is justified1 or believe the contrary1 with its corollary of a coming race of solemn scientific monsters40 ,i do not want to gain an argument by the easy device of omitting everything that does not help me2 therefore ,i take up this friend's contentions4 ,manifestly an element of play is essential to all art2 it is what distinguishes art from other forms of expression1 essays1 sermons1 speeches1 mathematical demonstrations4 ,if we do not emphasize this play element1 it is not from failure to realize the difference between a work of art and an essay1 a sermon1 a speech or a mathematical demonstration2 it is merely because the play element in art is recognized by everyone1 to the exclusion of the element of rational thought and purpose1 which is no less essential4 ,let us ask3 what is play8 ,the answer is3 play is nature's device whereby the young train themselves for reality4 ,two puppies pretending to bite each other's throats1 learn to fight without having their throats torn in the process4 ,so all young creatures develop their faculties2 and this function is carried right up into modern art products4 ,from many new novels ,i may learn1 without risking the fatal experiment1 what will happen to me if ,i permit the wild beast of lust to get me by the throat4 ,let us have another principle1 to guide us in our analysis3 ,art is play1 having for its purpose the development of human faculties1 and experiment with the possibilities of life4 ,but notice this distinction4 ,two puppies1 leaping at each other's throats and dodging away1 do not reason about what they are doing2 they are guided by instinct4 ,but a modern novelist knows what he is doing2 he is thinking ordered thoughts about life1 and making a deliberate record thereof4 ,so we have a second principle3 ,art is play1 to the extent that it is instinctive2 it is propaganda when it becomes mature and conscious4 ,manifestly1 art can never be entirely play1 because no human being is entirely instinctive2 nor can it be entirely propaganda--if it is to remain art1 it must keep the play form4 ,moreover1 the play element must be real1 not simply a sham2 the work must be a representation of life so skillful that we can pretend to take it for actuality4 ,wilkie ,collins gave his formula for success as a fiction writer3 8,make 'em laugh1 make 'em cry1 make 'em wait40 ,in other words1 make 'em do just what they would have to do1 if they were taking part in actual life4 ,this is the one indispensable element3 the artist1 by whatever trick1 must persuade us that this is no trick1 but reality4 ,the function of play in adults has been ably studied in ,dr4 ,patrick's book1 8,the ,psychology of ,relaxation40 ,we humans have only recently developed the upper lobes of the brain1 and cannot stand using them all the time2 it is necessary occasionally to let them rest1 and to live in the lower centers2 in other words1 to go back into childhood and play4 ,to my friend the ,poet1 who asks if ,i believe in play1 ,i answer by pointing to my tennis racquet4 ,but what shall we say about adults who play all the time8 ,modern science has a name for such people2 it calls them morons4 ,if you are a moron artist1 producing for a moron public1 it will not avail to argue with you4 ,but we have to inquire3 how comes it that the art of morons is glorified and defended as 8true0 and 8pure0 art8 ,how comes it that the quality of enjoyment without thought1 which is characteristic of puppies and infants1 comes to be considered a great quality in adults8 ,in the fields of industry and education1 we know that pitiful thing1 the mind of a child in the body of a grown man4 ,how comes it that such defective mentality is glorified in the field of art8 ,the answer is what you will expect from me4 ,there is a class which owns and runs the world1 and wishes everything to stay as it is4 ,as one of the functions of ownership1 this class controls culture and determines taste4 ,it glorifies the scholar1 the man who walks backward through life2 and likewise it glorifies the art-moron1 the man who has emotions without brains4 ,the so-called 8purity0 of art is thus a form of artificial childhood4 ,just as the ,chinese bind the feet of their women in order to keep them helpless and acquiescent1 so ruling-class culture binds the imagination of the race so that it may not stride into the future4 ,and if you think that those who run the world's thinking for the ruling class are not intelligent enough to formulate such a purpose as this--my reply is that you are as unintelligent as they would wish you to be1 and you justify all the contempt they feel for you4 ,,chapter ,,vii ,,mrs4 ,,ogi ,,emerges ,we now assume as demonstrated the following propositions4 ,first3 ,the artist is a social product1 his psychology and that of his art works being determined by the economic forces prevailing in his time4 ,and second3 ,the established artist of any period is a man in sympathy with the ruling classes of that period1 and voicing their interests and ideals4 ,if this be true1 the next step to the understanding of art1 and the history of art periods past and present1 is to understand the economic forces controlling mankind2 the evolution and struggle of classes4 ,we get that far1 when the argument is broken in upon by the particular ,mrs4 ,ogi who inhabits the cave where this manuscript is produced4 ,says ,mrs4 ,ogi3 8,in other words1 you are going to give them your ,socialist lecture40 ,says ,mrs4 ,ogi's husband3 8,but--0 ,says ,mrs4 ,ogi1 who finishes her husband's sentences1 as well as his manuscripts3 8,you promised me to write one book without propaganda60 8,but--0 once more--8this is a book to prove that all books are propaganda6 ,and can ,i conduct a propaganda for propaganda that isn't propaganda80 8,that depends10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi1 8upon how stupid you are40 ,she goes on to maintain that the purpose of all propaganda is to put itself across2 the essence of it being a new camouflage1 which keeps the reader from knowing what he is getting4 8,if you imagine that people who take up a discussion of art standards are going to read a discourse on the history of social revolutions1 ,i call you silly1 and you aren't going to alter my opinion by calling me ,mrs4 ,ogi40 8,my dear10 says the husband1 in haste1 8all that is not to be taken literally4 ,mrs4 ,ogi is the wife of the artist in general2 she is the human tie that binds him to the group1 and forces him to conform to group conventions40 8,i know--like all men1 you want to have it both ways4 ,everybody will assume--0 8,i won't let them assume6 ,it shall be explicitly stated that you are not ,mrs4 ,ogi40 8,let it be explicitly stated that there has never been any hand-embroidered table-linen in this cave--never any sort of table-linen but paper napkins since ,i've been in it60 8,my dear10 says ,ogi1 patiently1 8you were the one who first pointed out to me the significance of hand-embroidered table-linen in the history of art4 ,you remember that time when we went to the dinner-party at ,mrs4 ,heavy ,seller's--0 8,yes1 ,i remember2 and what you ought to do is to put that dinner-party into your book4 ,entitle your next chapter #8,the ,influence of ,lingerie on ,literature1' or1 #8,the ,soul of ,man ,under ,silk ,hosiery4'0 8,that's not bad10 says ,ogi1 8,i'll use it later4 ,meantime1 ,i'll do my best to liven up the argument as you request40 ,and so he retires and cudgels his brain1 and comes back with a new chapter--bearing1 not the dignified title of 8,the ,evolution of ,social ,classes10 as he had planned1 but instead1 a device to catch the fancy of the idle and frivolous-- ,,chapter ,,viii ,,the ,,horse-,,trade ,twenty-five years ago an ,american1 himself a victim of the commercial system and dying of consumption1 wrote a novel which contained a description of a horse-trade4 ,the novel was rejected by many publishers1 but came finally to one reader who recognized this horse-trading scene as the epitome of ,american civilization4 ,he persuaded the author to rewrite the book1 putting the horse-trade first1 and making everything else in the novel subsidiary2 this was done1 and the result was the most sensational success in the history of ,american fiction4 ,young and old1 rich and poor1 high and low1 all ,americans recognized in the opening scene of 8,david ,harum0 the creed they believed in1 the code they followed1 the success they sought3 they bought six hundred thousand copies of the book4 ,i was young at the time1 but ,i recall how all the people ,i knew were shaking their sides with laughter1 discussing the story with one another1 delighting in every step of the process whereby ,david got the better of the deacon4 ,let us analyze this horse-trade1 taking our data from the book4 ,first1 there is the lie of the seller1 describing a horse which he believes to be useless4 8,he's wuth two hundred jest as he stands4 ,he ain't had no trainin'1 an' he c'n draw two men in a road wagin better'n fifty40 ,and second1 there is the lie of the purchaser1 as the purchaser himself boasts about it afterwards3 8,wa'al1 the more ,i looked at him1 the better ,i liked him1 but ,i only says1 #8,jes so1 jes so1 he may be wuth the money1 but jes as ,i'm fixed now he ain't wuth it to me1 an' ,i hain't got that much money with me if he was1' ,i says40 ,so we see that in a horse-trade both the traders lie2 and further we see that each pretends to be telling the truth1 and makes an effort to persuade the other that he is telling the truth4 ,watching the ignoble process1 we perceive that neither of the traders is ever sure how far his own lies are being accepted2 nor is he sure what modicum of truth there may be in the other's lies4 ,so each is in a state of uncertainty and fear4 ,when the process has been completed1 one trader has a sense of triumph1 mingled with contempt for the victim2 the other trader has a sense of hatred1 mingled with resolve to 8get square40 ,it is further to be pointed out that this conflict of wits1 this modern form of the duello1 while it seems ruthless and cruel1 yet has its own strict ethical code4 ,david would lie to the deacon1 but he would not pick the deacon's pocket1 nor would he stab the deacon in the back1 no matter how badly the deacon might have defeated him in commercial war4 ,we observe also that the author feels under the necessity of persuading us that ,david would not have cheated the deacon unless he had first been cheated by the deacon2 this being the conventional lie of the horse-trader turned novelist4 ,we may also observe that next to the impulse to acquisitiveness1 the supreme quality of this ,yankee farmer1 comes the impulse to sociability2 having consummated his bargain1 he tells his sister about it1 and the humanness of the story lies not merely in the triumph of ,david1 but in his pleasure in telling his sister4 ,and observe that ,david tells her the truth without reservation4 ,there might be other matters about which he would lie to his sister1 but so far as concerns this horse-trade1 he knows that she will not betray him to the deacon4 ,when the first savage offered a fish in exchange for a cocoanut1 and made statements as to the freshness of the fish1 and the difficulties and perils of fishing1 the trade-lie was a comparatively simple thing4 ,but in the process of industrial evolution1 there have been developed so many variations and complexities that an encyclopedia of occupational deceptions would be required4 ,suffice it to say that the principle is understood in every nation and clime1 being embodied in innumerable maxims and witticisms3 caveat emptor3 business is business2 dog eat dog2 the devil take the hindmost2 look out for ,number ,one2 do others or they will do you2 self-preservation is the first law of ,nature4 ,in a civilization based upon commercial competition1 laissez faire and freedom of contract1 the lie of the horse-trader becomes the basis of all the really significant actions of men and women4 ,so obvious is this1 so clearly is it set forth in the wisdom of the race1 that at first thought it seems surprising that anyone could be led into believing a trade-lie4 ,but it is obvious that the test of a competent liar is that he gets himself believed2 like the endless struggle between the gun-maker and the armor-plate maker1 is the struggle between the trader and his victim4 ,the trader is aided by the fact that an impulse towards constructiveness has been planted in the human heart1 which breeds a repugnance to dishonesty4 ,so there are ideals and aspirations1 religions1 loyalties and patriotisms2 there are the ,christs and ,galileos of history1 the ,parsivals and ,don ,quixotes of legend4 ,as the trader himself puts it1 there is a sucker born every minute4 ,the trader kills a silly sheep1 and puts the skin over his wolf's hide2 so we have religious institutions and ethical systems1 philanthropic endowments1 professional codes1 political platforms2 we have honors1 offices and titles1 proprieties and respectabilities1 graces1 refinements1 etiquettes and standards of good taste4 ,many of these things begin naively and in good faith2 but in a society given up to commercial competition1 and dominated by systems of greed1 they all become trade-lies1 and are used as weapons in the war of the classes4 ,,chapter ,,ix ,,the ,,class ,,lie ,in the stage of economic evolution where the savage exchanges a fish for a cocoanut1 the balance of advantage in the trade may be equal4 ,the fisherman may need the cocoanut as badly as the cocoanut-gatherer needs the fish4 ,but as soon as we come to the stage where tokens are accepted1 there begins a shifting of the balance of advantage2 for the reason that the seller comes to specialize in the selling of one thing1 whereas the more complex the society1 the more different things the buyer must buy1 and so he remains an amateur as to each4 ,moreover1 the sellers learn to combine2 they form partnerships1 firms1 corporations1 alliances1 leagues1 associations1 parties1 classes2 the buyer1 on the other hand1 remains unorganized and helpless4 ,he is the consumer1 who takes what he can get2 he is the proletarian1 who has only his chains to lose2 he is that plaything of the competitive process1 that jest of the trader through the ages1 the general public4 8,the public be damned10 said a great seller of railway transportation1 and his phrase has become the corner-stone of capitalist civilization4 ,nineteen hundred years ago a revolutionary economist remarked1 8,to him that hath shall be given2 while from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath40 ,and this economic process is one which tends continually to accelerate1 multiplying itself by geometrical progression4 ,in present-day society1 the sellers are nearly all organized1 while labor is only ten per cent organized1 and the ultimate consumer is not organized at all4 ,we have thus the combination of a monopoly price with a competitive wage1 and the surplus wealth of the world is drawn by automatic process into the hands of a small class4 ,the world's selling power is now vested in combinations of capital1 called 8trusts10 which present themselves in the aspect of enormous fortresses of lies4 ,merely to give a catalogue of the various trade-lies embodied in the daily operations of such a 8trust0 would require a volume4 ,there are so many kinds of lies that no one man can know them all4 ,there are lies carried in the heads and embodied in the practice of petty chiefs of departments4 ,there are lies so generally accepted and conventionalized that the very liars do not know them as such1 and are amazed and wounded in the feelings when their attention is called to the truth4 ,there are lies so complicated that highly trained lawyers have been paid millions of dollars to contrive them4 ,there are lies so cleverly hidden that it would take the restoring of tons of burned account-books to prove them4 ,there are lies so blazoned forth on billboards and in newspapers that they have become part of the daily thought of the people1 and have given new words and phrases to the language4 ,so comes the next stage in the evolution of the trade-lie4 ,the owners of trusts and combinations unite into parties1 classes and governments for the defense of their gains4 ,they combine and endow and perpetuate their trade-lies1 making them into systems and institutions2 and so we have the ,lie ,wholesale1 the ,lie ,sublimated1 the ,lie ,traditional1 the ,lie ,classical2 we have the ,lie become ,religion1 ,philosophy1 ,history1 ,literature1 and ,art4 ,turn back to ,chapter ,,ii1 and read the list of the six great art lies2 you may now understand who made them and why4 ,lie ,number ,one1 the ,art for ,art's ,sake lie1 the notion that the end of art is in the art work1 is a trade lie of the art specialist1 the effort of a sacred caste to maintain its prestige and selling price4 ,lie ,number ,two1 the lie of ,art ,snobbery1 the notion that art is for the chosen few1 and outside the grasp of the masses1 is the same4 ,lie ,number ,three1 the lie of ,art ,tradition1 the notion that new artists must follow old models1 is a self-protective device of those in power4 ,lie ,number ,four1 the lie of ,art ,dilettantism1 the notion that the purpose of art is entertainment and diversion1 is a device of the culturally powerful to weaken and degrade those upon whom they prey2 just as the creatures of the underworld get their victims drunk before they rob them4 ,lie ,number ,five1 the lie of the ,art ,pervert1 the notion that art has nothing to do with moral questions1 is the same4 ,lie ,number ,six1 the lie of ,vested ,interest1 is the sum of all the other lies1 of all the infinite cruelties of predatory1 class-controlled culture4 ,the sarcastic critic will say that ,i make the artist an extremely knavish and dangerous person4 ,my answer is that he may be1 and frequently is1 an amiable and guileless child4 ,his knaveries are class knaveries1 collective cruelties1 conventions and attitudes to life which have been produced as automatic reactions to economic forces2 the individual acquires them with no more conscious thought than is involved in the assimilation of his food4 ,ogi lies and pretends1 he cheats1 robs and murders1 imaginatively speaking1 by the same instincts that cause him to blink his eyes in a bright light4 ,,chapter ,x ,,mrs4 ,,ogi ,,orders ,,jazz ,says ,mrs4 ,ogi3 8,well1 ,i see you are having your way40 ,now this is a sore subject in the cave4 ,each of the residents is absolutely certain that it is always the other who has his or her way2 and each is able to cite chapter and verse1 and frequently does so4 ,however1 at present ,ogi has a guilty conscience1 so he speaks softly4 8,i am almost through with my explanation of industrial evolution40 8,almost60 sniffs ,mrs4 ,ogi4 8,how much more80 8,well1 ,i have to show how successive classes emerge and acquire power--0 8,until at last we see the inevitable triumph of the proletariat and the establishment of the ,co-operative ,commonwealth6 ,that will be so new to your readers1 and so delightfully exciting6 ,and meantime they sit and wonder when the scandals begin40 8,scandals80 says ,ogi4 8,have ,i said anything about scandals80 8,you tell your readers you're going to turn the artists' pockets inside out and show what is in them6 ,if you don't do it1 they'll say1 #8,this show is a frost6'0 ,i mention that ,mrs4 ,ogi was brought up in exclusive social circles1 where never a breath of slang could pass her lips without some female relative raising a finger and whispering3 8,hush60 ,but times are changing1 and marriage becomes more and more a lottery4 ,says ,mrs4 ,ogi's husband3 8,of course ,i intend to muck-rake individual artists--0 8,which artists80 8,well1 ,i have to begin at the beginning--0 8,but you've already begun with the beginning of the world60 8,i have to begin now with the first significant art40 ,mrs4 ,ogi's snort reminds her husband of the old days of the aurochs hunt4 8,what the ,american people want to know is how many thousand dollars a week ,gloria ,swanson is really getting1 and what was ,rupert ,hughes' total income from #8,the ,sins of ,hollywood4' ,is all that to be put off to the end of your book80 8,but how can ,i deal with present-day art ahead of ancient art80 8,you make me think of those interminable ,english novels1 which begin with the infancy of the hero1 and get through public school at page three hundred and something60 8,but1 my dear1 there is some old literature that people are really interested in4 ,the ,bible for example--0 8,the ,hundred ,best ,books6 ,number two1 ,homer2 number three1 ,shakespeare2 ,number four1 ,paradise ,lost--0 8,but you overlook the fact--the ,bible is a best-seller60 8,the people who buy it are not people who read about art1 or would ever hear of a book on art theories4 ,they are people like ,mamma6 ,once upon a time a book-agent offered her a set of the ,world's ,great ,orations1 and she decided the dark red leather binding would go well with the draperies in the drawing-room4 ,then a couple of weeks later came another man1 selling a set of books in dark green cloth4 ,she decided these would match the decorations in the billiard-room1 so she bought them also1 and it wasn't until afterwards that somebody noticed the family had two sets of the same ,world's ,great ,orations60 8,but1 my dear1 there really is literature in the ,bible40 8,people have been told about literature in the ,bible since they were children in ,sunday school1 and there's no idea in the whole world that bores them quite so much40 8,but that's exactly the point6 ,that's what this book is for--to show how real literature was alive in its own day1 and is just as much alive in the present day4 ,don't you see what a fascinating theme3 they had in ,judea the very same class struggle--0 ,there has come that fanatical light into his eyes which ,mrs4 ,ogi knows so well2 he means to make her sit and listen to a whole chapter--and when she has the laundry to count1 and the apples to boil for his supper6 8,go ahead and write it10 she says1 in a weary voice4 8,but take my advice and jazz it up60 ,so ,ogi goes away and postpones his exposition of the successive emergence of social classes2 and instead of an impressive title such as 8,agrarian ,revolt in ,ancient ,judea10 he begins-- ,,chapter ,,xi ,,the ,,populist ,,convention ,from the ,new ,york 8,sun10 ,july #d1 the early #ahijs3 ,,kansas ,,kicking ,cranks' ,convention in ,tumult at ,topeka ,wild ,asses of ,prairie ,bray ,millennium by ,majority ,vote ,scheduled for ,next ,november ,topeka1 ,kan41 ,july #c4 7,special to the 8,sun407 ,the open season for devil-hunting is on in ,topeka today4 ,from ,nemaha ,county on the ,north to ,comanche on the ,south1 from ,cherokee ,county on the ,east to ,cheyenne on the ,west1 the hunters are pouring into their state capital2 money-devil hunters and speculator-devil hunters1 railroad-devil hunters and rum-devil hunters4 ,the streets of the city swarm with them1 the lobbies of the hotels are packed with them1 spell-binders and oratorical wizards1 political quack-doctors and prohibitionist cranks1 long-haired men and short-haired women1 partisans of free money1 free land and free love4 ,for months they have been looking forward to this convention1 which is to wrest the powers of government from the hands of a predatory plutocracy2 today1 if there is a lunatic in ,kansas who is not in ,topeka1 it is only because the ,wall ,street devil has got him behind bars in one of the asylums4 ,the lobby of the ,american ,house this evening is more like the menagerie tent of a circus than like anything else ever seen in the effete ,east4 ,the convention opens at ten o'clock tomorrow morning1 and tonight every orator has a last chance to save the nation before the platform is made up4 ,audiences are not necessary1 everybody talks at once1 and there are a dozen men delivering exhortations1 standing on the leather seats of hotel-lobby chairs4 ,here is 8,sockless0 ,jeremiah ,simpson1 expecting to be nominated for ,congress tomorrow4 ,coatless and tieless1 his collar wilted flat1 he shouts to the corn-field cohorts his denunciations of the blood-sucking leeches which have picked the bones of the farmers of ,kansas4 ,here is ,isaiah ,woe1 weird figure having whiskers almost to his belt and pants almost to his shoe-tops1 waving his skinny arms and justifying his surname--8,woe1 woe1 woe--woe unto this and woe unto that--woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees1 and that write grievousness which they have prescribed2 to turn aside the needy from judgment1 and to take away the rights from the poor of my people1 that widows may be their prey1 and that they may rob the fatherless60 ,isaiah is known as a 8prophet0 among this prairie population2 he roars the grievances of the dear peepul of the prairie-country1 and shakes the hayseeds and corn-dust out of his white whiskers until his audience really believes it sees a halo about his head4 ,he does not hesitate to claim divine inspiration1 declaring to the mob3 8,the ,lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek2 he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted1 to proclaim liberty to the captives40 ,isaiah has no rival in lung-power1 unless it be ,micah1 the ,pottawatomie ,prophet--8,mournful ,mike10 as he is known in the state capital4 ,this aged replica of ,uncle ,sam is out on a cracker-box in front of the ,elks' ,club1 and your reporter took down some of his sentences verbatim3 8,they build up ,washington with blood1 and ,new ,york with iniquity4 ,the heads thereof judge for reward1 and the priests thereof teach for hire1 and the prophets thereof divine for money4444 ,therefore shall ,washington for your sake be plowed as a field1 and ,new ,york shall become heaps1 and the buildings of ,wall ,street as the high places of a forest40 ,there is a regiment of such calamity howlers and kickers1 thirsting for the blood of the money-devil4 ,there is ,elijah1 known as the 8boy orator0 from ,kiowa ,county1 and ,angry ,amos1 the 8,wild ,man of ,neosho40 ,there is one ,john1 who calls himself the ,baptist1 and has adopted the singular habit of dipping his followers into water--though it must be stated that few of them show the effects after a blistering hot day in ,topeka4 ,it is reported and generally believed that the water-dipping prophet lives upon the locusts which infest the ,kansas corn-fields1 together with wild honey furnished by friendly bees in the cottonwoods along the creek bottoms4 ,apparently1 however1 the prophet has not brought along a supply of his customary provender1 for your correspondent observed him this afternoon partaking of sinkers and coffee in the railroad restaurant1 with a bunch of other wild asses from the prairie4 ,kansas is scheduled to have a new political party tomorrow2 a party of the peepul1 to be run by prophets1 none of whom will take their salaries when they get elected to office4 ,and what is to be the platform of this party8 ,well1 the government is to fix the price of wheat1 and freight-rates are to be reduced to a point which will compel holders of railway securities to live on locusts and wild honey4 ,all interest on money is to be abolished2 the prophets of the ,lord call it 8usury10 and the plank in their platform on the subject reads as follows3 8,if thy brother be waxen poor1 and fallen in decay with thee1 then thou shalt relieve him1 yea1 though he be a stranger or a sojourner1 that he may live with thee3 ,take thou no interest of him1 or increase2 but fear thy ,god that thy brother may live with thee4 ,thou shalt not give him any money upon usury1 nor lend him thy victuals for increase40 ,and if that be not enough1 bond slavery is to be forbidden by law1 and beginning with the year #aijj1 and every fifty years thereafter1 all debts are to be forgiven1 and everybody is to have a fresh start4 ,well may ,jabez ,smith1 chairman of the ,state ,committee of the ,republican party1 watching this outfit of wild men and listening to their conglomeration of lunacy1 lift up his hands and cry out3 8,was ist los mit ,kansas80 444 99 99 99 99 99 ,such was news according to the ,new ,york 8,sun0 of ,charles ,a4 ,dana's time2 the sort of news from which ,i got all my political ideas during boyhood4 ,seven times every week ,i would read articles and editorials in that tone1 and laugh with glee over them2 and then1 every ,sunday morning and evening ,i would go to church1 and listen while the preacher read the words of ,jeremiah and ,isaiah and ,micah and ,elijah and ,amos and ,john the ,baptist1 and ,i would accept them all as the divinely inspired words of ,god4 ,how was ,i1 poor lad1 to know that the very same prophets were back on earth1 living the very same lives and making the very same speeches--trying to save ,america1 as of old they had tried to save ,judea1 from the hands of the defilers and the despoilers8 ,,chapter ,,xii ,,kansas ,,and ,,judea ,how did it happen that political agitators1 living in the ,mississippi ,valley at the end of the nineteenth century1 were identical in spirit with religious prophets in ,asia ,minor five hundred years before ,christ8 ,the answer is that civilizations rise and fall1 and history repeats itself4 ,let me describe one historic process1 and you watch my statement phrase by phrase1 and see if you can tell whether ,i am referring to ancient ,judea or to modern ,kansas4 ,a people traveled for a long distance1 fleeing from despotism and seeking religious liberty4 ,they were a primitive1 hardy people1 having a stern faith in one ,god who personally directed their lives4 ,they came to a rich land1 and conquered it by hard fighting1 under this personal direction of their ,god4 ,they built homes1 they gathered flocks and herds1 they accumulated wealth2 and they saw this wealth pouring into cities1 to be absorbed by governing and trading classes4 ,their agricultural democracy evolved into a plutocratic imperialism4 ,the landlords and the tax collectors left them nothing but a bare living2 the fruits of their labor paid for palaces and temples with golden roofs1 and for golden calves and monkey dinners1 and rulers with a thousand chorus girls4 ,so there was revolt in the country districts1 and one after another came prophets of discontent4 ,always these prophets were radical in the economic sense1 voicing the wrongs of the poor and helpless1 the widows and the orphans4 ,always they were conservative in the social and religious sense1 calling the people back to simplicity and honesty of life1 to faith in the one true ,god4 ,always they used the symbols of the old tribal creed2 repudiating new-fangled divinities such as ,baal and ,darwin1 and gathering at ,armageddon to battle for the ,lord4 ,throughout their lives they were stoned and persecuted and covered with ridicule2 when they died they became their country's glory1 and their words were cherished and embodied in sacred records which school children were made to study4 ,now1 how much of that is ,judea1 and how much is ,kansas8 ,let us make clear the point1 essential to our present argument1 that from cover to cover the 8,old ,testament0 is propaganda4 ,those who created it created it as propaganda1 having no remotest idea of anything else4 ,nowadays our docile population reads it and accepts it as the literal inspired ,word--not realizing that the book is divided between two kinds of propaganda1 which exactly cancel each other3 the propaganda of a ruling class1 teaching reverence for kings and priests1 and the propaganda of rebels1 clamoring for the overthrow of these same kings and priests6 ,this ,old ,testament is also offered to us in the literature classes1 so it will be worth our while to consider it from that point of view4 ,manifestly there is much of it which never pretended to be literature4 ,there are weary chronicles of the doings of kings1 and lists of their sons and grandsons4 ,you may find acres of this in our big libraries1 but it is classified as genealogy1 not literature4 ,likewise there are the laws of the ,hebrews1 which belong in the legal department4 ,there are architectural specifications for the temple1 and rules of hygiene--all important to a historian1 but rubbish to anybody else4 ,there are a great number of legends which are eternally delightful to children1 stories of the creation and the fall of man1 and of gods and devils and miracles1 precisely as important as similar stories among the ancient ,anglo-,saxons1 or the ancient ,greeks1 or the ancient ,egyptians1 or the ancient ,hopis4 ,among these stories are a few which display fine feeling and narrative skill1 and so for the first time we have literature4 ,there is one attempt at a drama2 it is crude and confused--any sophomore1 having taken a course in dramatic construction at a state university1 could show the author of the ,book of ,job how to clarify his theme and cut out the repetitions4 ,but in the midst of such crudities is magnificent poetry1 which our university courses have not yet taught us to equal4 ,likewise there is some shrewd philosophy--and it is amusing to note that our verbal inspirationalists accept the worldly-wise common sense of the ,proverbs and the bleak cynicism of ,ecclesiastes as equally divine with the fervor of ,isaiah and the fanatical rage of ,jeremiah4 ,finally1 there is some lyric poetry of a spiritual nature1 this also full of repetition4 ,if you are judging it as ritual1 that is all right1 because ritual is intended to affect the subconscious1 and repetition is the essence of the process4 ,the difference between ritual and literature is that the latter makes its appeal to the conscious mind1 where a little repetition goes a long way4 ,dr4 ,johnson was asked his opinion of the feminist movement in religion1 and he said that 8a woman preaching is like a dog walking on two legs2 it is not well done1 but we are surprised that it is done at all40 ,i think that if we examine our judgments carefully1 we shall find that our high opinion of ancient writings is on this basis4 ,we do not really judge them by modern standards1 any more than we judge a child by adult standards when he tries to wield a pen1 or a hoe1 or an oar4 ,our pleasure in reading ancient writings is to note the beginnings of real thinking1 of mature attitudes toward life4 ,we say3 8,by ,george1 those old fellows had a lot of sense after all60 ,but judging the ,old ,testament strictly1 as literature1 not as antiquity1 ,i say that everything which is of serious value to a modern adult person could be gathered into an extremely small volume1 certainly not over thirty thousand words1 or four per cent of the total4 ,,chapter ,,xiii ,,the ,,communist ,,almanac ,from the 8,american ,times0 ,sunday ,review of ,books1 ,a4 ,d4 #aidd ,,satan ,,sanctified ,a ,new ,religion ,enters the ,lists ,there come to the desk of a literary editor many volumes which could not by any stretch of the imagination be considered as literature4 ,but they are printed and bound1 and those who write them believe them of importance1 and others may be of the same opinion4 ,so it becomes the task of a reviewer to give an account of these volumes4 ,the book now before us came through the mails1 bearing no indication as to the sender2 and examination of the contents quickly reveals the reason4 ,those who print and circulate the volume know that in so doing they render themselves liable to the lethal gas chamber4 ,nevertheless1 they are impelled by fanaticism to incur the risk1 so here is the result on our desk4 ,technically1 we believe the editor incurs penalties by keeping the volume1 instead of turning it over to the police authorities4 ,but it seems to us a matter of importance that the public should know what sort of material is now being circulated among the populace1 and for that reason we give an account of the contents of the 8,communist ,almanac for #aidd40 ,it is perhaps a natural tendency of the human mind1 an inevitable process of history1 that holders of proscribed opinions should see themselves as martyrs1 and endeavor to capitalize their sufferings for political advantage4 ,so1 ever since the extermination of the ,soviet government by the armed forces of the civilized world1 the surviving ,communists1 hiding in forests and holes in the ground1 have been seeing themselves as founders of a new religion4 ,in this document which they now put before us1 we find the creed and ritual of this monstrous perversion of the so-called proletarian mind1 together with the biographies of its founder and the acts of its leading martyrs4 ,the founder is ,nikolai ,lenin1 and1 incredible as it may seem1 this person has been selected for sanctification6 ,a couple of years before his death1 an almost successful attempt was made to assassinate him1 and the bullets then shot into his body are said to have been the final cause of his death4 ,that is sufficient to constitute martyrdom in the ,soviet formula1 and to entitle ,vladimir ,ulianov to become a legend4 ,for a year after his death the ,soviet government attempted to preserve his body in mummy form2 but this kind of immortality being unattainable1 the body was buried1 and soon afterwards rumors began to spring up all over ,russia to the effect that ,lenin had come back to life1 and was reappearing to his followers1 giving them advice about the management of his ,bolshevik dictatorship4 ,that was a miracle2 so now ,lenin is a divine personage1 and those who died in the faith of the 8proletarian0 revolution are martyrs and saints4 ,at least1 that is the thesis of the 8,communist ,almanac for #aidd40 ,the volume opens with no less than four biographies of the founder1 alleged to have been composed by different followers who knew him intimately1 ,mattiu ,shipinsky1 ,marco ,sugarmann1 ,luka ,herzkovitz1 and ,ivan ,petchnikoff4 ,the last1 it appears1 is a kind of philosopher1 and provides for the ,bolshevik cult the mantle of a mystical and metaphysical system4 ,it is amusing to note that the four biographies go into minute detail--and differ as to many of these details6 ,they purport to quote their founder verbatim--and his words on the same occasions are seldom the same words6 ,most absurd yet1 they cannot even agree about his ancestry6 ,in fact1 they cannot agree about anything1 except that he was the most remarkable person who has ever lived on earth1 the bearer of a new revelation to mankind4 ,following the biographies1 the 8,almanac0 proceeds to a long recital of the doings of various propagandists of the cult1 their travels over the world in the interest of the 8class struggle10 and the persecutions to which they were subjected in various countries4 ,it is a melancholy duty to record that among these emissaries of disaster were several of ,american birth and ancestry4 ,one of the easy ways of achieving sanctification under the ,bolshevik system is to be bitten by a body-louse1 and to die of typhus4 ,so among the ,soviet apostles we find the figure of ,john ,reed1 graduate of ,harvard ,university1 and traitor to his country and his race4 ,next we have various communications from these agents of social chaos1 addressed to their deluded followers4 ,this part of the volume is almost comical1 in the solemnity with which these precious words are recorded and preserved for the benefit of posterity4 ,needless to say1 the communications contain exhortations to the party members to remain steadfast in the faith1 and to carry the message to their fellow 8wage-slaves40 ,this portion of the volume is known as the 8,epistles0--the word 8epistle0 being ,russian for letter4 ,finally1 there is a collection of miscellaneous prophesyings1 attributed to a former commissar under the ,russian ,bolshevik government4 ,all we can say concerning this part of the volume is that we have been unable to find out what it means1 and it seems destined to serve as an inspiration to all the lunatics and would-be prophets of the next two thousand years4 ,it is called 8,revelations10 and closes the amazing volume4 ,we think the time has come when public sentiment should make plain that the present laxity of the ,department of ,justice toward ,communist agitators1 and the whole tribe of 8parlor ,bolsheviks0 and 8pinks10 will no longer be tolerated4 ,we should be sorry to see this country return to the old days of the ,democratic and ,republican parties1 and the oil scandals of the ,harding-,coolidge era4 ,but when we read a collection of perversities such as this 8,communist ,almanac10 we cannot but sigh for the return of ,palmer and ,daugherty1 when red-blooded hundred per cent ,americans set to work with vigor to preserve their country from the fanatical propagandists of class greed4 ,,chapter ,,xiv ,,god',s ,,propaganda ,we have before us another literary criticism1 clipped from the 8,roman ,times ,weekly ,review of ,books0 during the year #cjj1 under the ,emperor ,diocletian4 ,it is word for word the same as that from the 8,american ,times0 of #aidd--the only difference being that one deals with an outlaw party known as ,bolsheviks1 while the other deals with an outlaw sect known as ,christians4 ,the ,founder of this latter sect is described by the 8,roman ,times0 as a proletarian criminal1 who was crucified for disturbing the public peace under the ,emperor ,augustus ,csar4 ,his followers have been hiding in catacombs and tombs1 carrying on incessant propaganda in defiance of the ,roman law4 ,in place of ,john ,reed1 the 8,roman ,times0 refers to a certain ,paul1 a renegade ,roman gentleman and former official of the empire4 ,the good old days to which the 8,roman ,times0 looks back with longing1 are the days of ,nero1 when these incendiary fanatics were boiled in oil or fed to the lions4 ,under the prodding of this most respectable 8,times10 the ,emperor ,diocletian undertook a new and ferocious persecution of the sect2 but twenty-four years afterwards the successor of ,diocletian became converted to ,christianity1 and adopted it as the official religion of the state1 entitled to persecute other religions4 ,the reader who is a ,christian will remind me that ,jesus was a pacifist1 he was meek and gentle4 ,to this ,i answer1 the early social revolutionists were likewise ,utopians1 appealing to love and brotherhood4 ,at the time the ,new ,testament became fixed in its present form1 the ,christians had never held power in any part of the world4 ,when they took power under the ,emperor ,constantine1 they behaved like every government in history--that is1 they kept their power1 using as much force as necessary for the purpose4 ,if the reader is shocked by the fact that the ,soviet government of ,russia fought for two years a defensive war on twenty-six fronts against its enemies1 ,i invite him to consider the ,christian crusades1 two centuries of offensive propaganda warfare4 ,if he is shocked by stories he has read about the ,tcheka and its torturing of prisoners1 ,i invite him to consult ,lea's 8,history of the ,spanish ,inquisition40 ,considering the series of religious wars which made of ,europe a shambles for more than a thousand years1 it is safe to assert that for every human life sacrificed by the ,soviet revolution in ,russia1 a hundred thousand lives have been taken in the name of the gentle and lowly ,jesus4 ,but these are questions which will not be settled in a generation1 nor in a century2 therefore we pass on1 and take up the question of the ,new ,testament as literature4 ,it has been generally so recognized1 and we may doubt if any writing ever collected in one volume has exercised as great an influence upon the human race4 ,and let it be noted that this literature is propaganda1 pure and simple2 we may defy anyone to find a single line in the ,gospels1 the ,acts1 the ,epistles1 or the ,book of ,revelations which was not produced as conscious and deliberate propaganda4 ,a critic highly regarded by the academic authorities when ,i was a student in college was ,george ,henry ,lewes4 ,i read his 8,life of ,goethe10 and made note of his argument on behalf of 8realist0 as opposed to 8idealist0 art4 ,goethe and ,shakespeare are his examples of the former type2 and how obvious is their superiority to those 8subjective0 artists1 who 8seek in realities only visible illustrations of a deeper existence60 ,the critic takes as his test the production of 8the grandest generalizations and the most elevated types02 but it was evident to me1 even in my student days1 that he reached his conclusion by the simple device of overlooking the evidence on the other side4 ,i introduce to you four 8idealist0 artists who bear the names--perhaps pen-names--of ,matthew1 ,mark1 ,luke and ,john4 ,will anyone maintain that the works of ,shakespeare and ,goethe contain 8grander generalizations0 or 8more elevated types0 than the ,four ,gospels8 ,we set ,jesus against ,shakespeare1 and ,buddha against ,goethe1 and leave it for the common sense of mankind to decide4 ,,chapter ,,xv ,,mrs4 ,,prestonia ,,orders ,,plumbing ,when ,i was a young man1 groping my way into ,socialism1 ,i discovered that the movement in and about ,new ,york had a patroness4 ,mrs4 ,prestonia ,martin was her name1 and she had a beautiful home in the suburbs1 and another up in the ,adirondacks4 ,an assortment of well-bred radicals would gather1 and wait on themselves at table1 and do their own laundry1 and scratch a bit in the garden1 and feel they were on the front door-step of the ,co-operative ,commonwealth4 ,john ,martin had been a member of the ,fabian ,society in ,london1 so we knew we were under the best possible auspices1 doing the exactly correct advanced things4 ,but time committed its ravages upon the minds of my friends ,prestonia and ,john4 ,they lost their vision of the ,co-operative ,commonwealth1 and when you went to the beautiful 8camp0 overlooking ,keene ,valley1 you no longer met young radicals1 and no longer helped with the laundry2 you met sedate philosophers1 and listened to ,prestonia expounding the mournful conclusion that humanity had never made any advance4 ,the couple took up a new crusade--to avert from womankind the horrors of politics4 ,the last time ,i met ,john1 just before the war1 he was an entirely respectable member of the ,new ,york school board and smiled at me a patronizing smile when ,i ventured to prophesy that inside of ten years women would be voting in ,new ,york state4 8,you will never live to see that60 said the prophet ,john4 ,the psalmist expresses the wish that 8mine enemy would write a book02 and in this case mine enemy's wife committed the indiscretion4 ,i have before me a scholarly-looking volume1 published in #aiaj1 entitled 8,is ,mankind ,advancing80 by ,mrs4 ,john ,martin4 ,i cite it as an outstanding example of one variety of culture superstition2 it reduces to absurdity the arguments of one group of tradition worshipers4 ,my old friend ,prestonia has discovered that the ,greeks achieved a higher civilization than has ever since existed on earth1 and her demonstration that mankind is not advancing is based on the exaltation of ,greek civilization over everything that has since come along4 ,mrs4 ,prestonia does not really know very much about ,greek civilization2 ,i can state that1 because ,i had many discussions with her at the time she was writing this book4 ,what she has done is to take a history of ,greece and list the leading names1 higgledy-piggledy1 regardless of their ideas1 or of the parts they played1 regardless of the fact that they fought and even killed one another1 regardless of the fact that their doctrines contradict and cancel one another4 ,they were ,greeks1 and therefore they were great4 ,two or three hundred are listed1 all men of genius2 and what names can you put against them8 ,i ventured to suggest a number of names to my friend ,prestonia2 but you see1 my men were modern men1 vulgar1 common fellows who wore trousers1 and ate pie1 and worked for dollars6 ,think of comparing ,edison with ,archimedes--could anything be more absurd8 ,think of comparing ,pasteur with ,hippocrates6 8,but1 my dear lady10 ,i would argue1 8,hippocrates believed that disease was caused by #8humors'2 he believed that crises in disease followed numerical systems40 ,maybe that was true1 said ,prestonia1 but nevertheless1 ,hippocrates was the greatest physician that ever lived4 ,and she would have ,socrates listed as one of the glories of ,athenian civilization--in spite of the fact that ,athenian civilization had compelled him to drink the hemlock6 ,in her queer hall of fame the imperialist ,pericles1 who led his country to ruin1 and was convicted of the theft of public money1 takes rank as the greatest statesman in all history1 outranking ,lincoln1 who saved the ,american ,union1 and freed several million slaves4 ,a dissolute young despot1 ,alexander1 who sighed for new worlds to conquer1 outranks ,george ,washington1 who founded a nation of free men1 and then retired to his plantation4 ,after running over the list of all the achievements of modern literature and art1 politics and philosophy1 science and industry1 ,i was able at last to find one thing which my friend ,prestonia was unwilling to get along without4 ,she wanted to live in ancient ,athens--but to have her modern plumbing6 ,and never once had it occurred to her that plumbing means lead and copper and steel and brass and nickel and porcelain and paint6 ,also mills in which these things are produced1 railroads or motor trucks on which they are transported1 factories in which the cars and trucks are made6 ,also telegraph and telephone and electric light1 and bookkeeping systems and credit systems1 and capital and labor1 and the ,republican party and the ,socialist movement6 ,all this is preliminary to a study of the literature and art of ancient ,greece2 to help us clear our minds of cant1 and persuade us to face the question3 how much do we really admire ,greek literature and ,greek art1 and how much do we just pretend to admire it8 ,how much is the superiority of ,greek civilization a reality1 and how much is it a superstition maintained by gentlemen who have acquired honorific university degrees1 which represent to them a meal ticket for the balance of their sojourns on earth8 ,,chapter ,,xvi ,,mrs4 ,,ogi ,,orders ,,etiquette 8,well10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi1 8,i see you have got down to the scandal40 ,her husband looks pained4 8,do you call that scandal80 8,you accept people's hospitality1 and then come away and ridicule them1 and reveal secrets about how they got the family washing done--0 8,secrets60 cries ,ogi4 8,but that was a reform movement1 a crusade60 ,after reflection1 he adds3 8,if ,i really wanted to tell scandals1 ,i could do it4 ,i might hint that ,john lost his faith in the radical movement as a result of auto-intoxication40 8,well1 all ,i can say is that if you tell that1 ,i'll never speak to you again40 ,ogi answers meekly1 8,excuse me40 ,and then3 8,what do you think of my thesis80 8,well10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi1 8,i see1 of course--you are trying to irritate and shock people as much as possible4 ,are you going to say that ,greek art is propaganda80 8,i can't possibly help saying it40 8,you know that this art is always cited as the perfect type of pure art1 the expression of joy and love of beauty40 8,the ,greeks were a beauty-loving race and a joy-seeking race1 and they embodied their ideals in the figures of gods and goddesses--extremely lovely figures4 ,no one can do better with the human body than they did2 but if you take those divinities on their good looks1 you'll simply be repeating the bitter mistake of the ,greeks--and without their excuse of inexperience40 ,says ,mrs4 ,ogi3 8,we're to have a ,christian sermon on naked marble idols80 8,we are going to understand the total art product of the ,greeks1 to draw out of it what they put into it4 ,these people constituted themselves an experiment station to try out beauty-loving--that is1 trust in ,nature--as a basis of civilization2 and they found it didn't work4 ,it led them into pain and failure and despair1 and the record is written all over their art4 ,there is a book1 ,mackail's #8,greek ,anthology1' a collection of various kinds of inscriptions1 brief verses and sentiments from all sources2 and you search the pages and hardly find one happy word4 ,you discover that their art was to put sadness into beautiful and melodious language4 #8,of all things1' says ,theognis1 #8it is best for men not to be born4' ,and ,anacreon1 poet of the joy-lovers1 compares life to a chariot wheel that #8runs fast away4'0 8,well1 but so it does60 8,something endures1 and we have to find out what4 ,we have to take hold of life1 and learn to direct it2 we cannot just play in a garden1 like happy children4 ,the ,greeks played1 and their garden turned into a charnel-house1 a place of horror4 ,i call it an amazing blunder of criticism--the notion that ,greek art is one of joy and freedom4 ,the culmination of their art impulse was the tragedies which the whole community helped to create and maintain4 ,these performances were religious ritual1 their supreme civic events2 and what do they tell us8 ,there is one theme1 immutably fixed1 the helplessness of the human spirit in the grip of fate4 ,a black shadow hangs over the life of men1 they grope blindly in the darkness4 ,whole families1 mighty dynasties of kings and rulers are condemned to destruction4 ,they are pursued by bitter and fierce and relentless ,nemesis4 ,somber prophecies are spoken before men are born1 and then we see these men1 striving with all their wit to evade their destiny--in vain4 ,our pleasure as spectators is to watch this process1 and be convinced of the helplessness of our kind4 ,we are lifted up to the heaven of the gods1 we are endowed with omniscience and omnipotence--in order to drive a dagger into our own bosoms1 to cohabit with our own mothers and sisters1 to stab our own fathers and brothers1 to tear out our own eyeballs4 ,enacting such things with majesty and solemnity1 reciting them in melodious language to the rhythm of beautiful music and the graceful motions of a chorus--that is the final achievement of these lovers of beauty and joy60 8,you are becoming eloquent10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi1 who distrusts eloquence in her cave4 8,what conclusion do you draw about this art80 8,we are physicians1 called to a case after the patient is dead4 ,we want to know what killed this man1 so that we can advise living patients4 ,from this post-mortem we learn that sensuous charm does not suffice to secure life2 it is not enough for people to carve beautiful figures of the nude human body1 and build marble temples to joy and love1 while their civic affairs are full of jealousy and greed and corruption40 8,was there corruption in ,greek public life80 8,so much that we in modern times cannot conceive it4 ,yes1 ,i know about the ,teapot ,dome and the black satchel with a hundred thousand dollars worth of bills4 ,nevertheless1 if anyone were to tell us about corruption such as the ,greeks took for granted1 not even a movie audience would swallow it40 8,now that sounds interesting10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi4 8,tell us scandals about these reverend ancients60 8,first ,i want to explain the class struggle in ,greek society1 and the economic basis of their state--0 8,you take my advice10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi2 8leave that lecture until the end1 and then forget it4 ,take your muck-rake and poke it into the ,parthenon60 8,what ,i want to do10 says ,ogi1 8is to take a character out of ancient ,greece1 and set him down in our world and see how he'd sound to us4 ,something like this--0 ,,chapter ,,xvii ,,william ,,randolph ,,alcibiades ,from 8,the ,american ,plutarch3 ,our ,leading ,statesmen ,portrayed for the ,young2 with ,moral ,inferences40 ,new ,york3 ,a4 ,d4 #babd4 ,the career of ,william ,randolph ,alcibiades1 publisher1 soldier and politician1 coincided with the era of the ,great ,wars4 ,he was born to a position of power and luxury1 being a nephew of the greatest statesman of his time1 and having as his private tutor the leading philosopher of his time4 ,he had rare gifts of personal beauty and charm2 but his youth was wild and dissipated1 and he spurned the conventional career which lay open to him1 and set himself up as a leader of the ,democratic party4 ,his enemies called him a demagogue1 and denied him any sincerity in his popular appeals4 ,in the first ,world ,war the young statesman was chosen commander-in-chief of the ,american forces in ,france4 ,returning home1 he organized and led the expedition for the conquest of ,south ,america1 and laid siege to the city of ,buenos ,ayres4 ,he was recalled1 because his enemies charged that on the night before the expedition sailed1 he had committed an act of sacrilege by chopping off the nose of the statue of ,george ,washington in front of the ,treasury ,building1 ,new ,york4 ,history will never know who committed this vandalism2 a young man confessed1 and some of those whom he charged with guilt were executed1 but the enemies of ,william ,randolph maintained that he had purchased this confession1 in order to get rid of certain persons who stood in his way4 ,william ,randolph1 while being conducted back to his country under arrest1 made his escape to ,england4 ,in order to punish his enemies at home1 he made fervent appeals to the ,british government to enter the war on the side of ,south ,america1 and against his own country4 ,his eloquence prevailed1 and both ,england and ,france sent ships to the relief of ,buenos ,ayres4 ,but ,william ,randolph had to flee from ,england to ,france1 because the ,english king made the discovery that the young ,american had seduced his wife4 ,william ,randolph now lived in retirement until the second ,world ,war broke out--between the ,united ,states on the one hand1 and ,japan and ,china1 aided by ,england and ,france1 on the other4 ,william ,randolph had always been ardent in promoting hostility against ,japan1 but he now fled to the court of the ,japanese emperor1 and with money furnished by this wealthy monarch he sent emissaries to foment a conspiracy in the ,united ,states4 ,the conflict between the ,republican and ,democratic parties had reached a stage of such bitterness that the wealthy classes were ready to listen to any scheme which promised them power4 ,william ,randolph having deserted the ,democrats and gone over to the ,republicans1 his agents approached the naval officers of the fleet1 and these1 combined with ,judge ,gary and ,j4 ,p4 ,morgan and other gentlemen of wealth1 overthrew the established government1 and set up a new constitution1 which confined the voting power to five thousand of the richest citizens4 ,the new government made an alliance with ,japan and ,china against ,england and ,france2 and ,william ,randolph returned to the ,united ,states and became a general in command of the ,american army4 ,but his failure to win victories caused his popularity to wane1 and he fled to a castle he had built for himself in ,mexico4 ,the ,british government1 enraged by what he had done to turn the ,japanese emperor against them1 sent emissaries to set fire to his castle1 and ,william ,randolph ,alcibiades was shot while trying to make his escape from the flames4 ,from this career we learn that it is not enough for a statesman to be beautiful in person and charming in manner3 it is also necessary that he be taught to attend ,sunday school in his youth4 ,,chapter ,,xviii ,,the ,,age ,,of ,,hero-,,worship ,greek civilization was made by a large number of different tribes1 inhabiting islands1 or fertile valleys and plains separated by mountain ranges4 ,among these tribes there was incessant rivalry and bitter jealousy4 ,they were never able to form a national or racial union1 and their history is a succession of inter-tribal intrigues and wars4 ,in addition to this came the class struggle4 ,the aristocratic classes1 based on landlordism1 held the government1 while the proletariat1 crowding into the towns1 clamored for power2 popular leaders arose1 and there were conspiracies and civic tumults4 ,invariably the leaders of the dispossessed party would form alliances with outside states for war upon their own state4 ,more significant yet1 some would take the money and serve the cause of the ,persian kings1 who represented barbarian despotism4 ,in the beginning of their written record we find the ,greeks just emerging from the family stage4 ,the old men ruled2 they were the wise and the rich1 and no one disputed their authority4 ,they formed alliances and led expeditions for the plundering of other states2 then1 returning to their ancestral halls1 they hired musicians to entertain them by chanting the story of their exploits4 ,so we have the ,homeric poems1 ruling-class propaganda1 written to glorify the ancestors of powerful chieftains and fighting men1 and to inculcate the spirit of obedience and martial pride in the new generations4 ,every device of the poet's art is employed to lend prominence and splendor to the ,homeric heroes4 ,they are frequently demigods1 the result of some mood of dalliance on the part of one of the high gods of ,olympus1 who came down to earth and encountered a lovely ,greek maiden wandering in a meadow4 ,this divine illegitimacy entitles the heroes to the center of the stage1 and they take it4 ,they are a set of extremely greedy1 jealous1 vain and capricious school-boys2 and1 what is still more significant1 their gods1 the highest ideal they could conceive1 are exactly as greedy1 jealous1 vain and capricious4 ,the only beautiful emotion in the poems is when some of the mothers and fathers1 the wives and children of those heroes express for them an affection of which they are unworthy4 ,we are accustomed to use the words 8,homeric0 and 8epic0 to signify something vast1 elemental1 portentous4 ,how is it that ,homer secures to his characters this 8heroic0 effect8 ,by causing all the rest of the world to bow to their pretensions1 by interesting the gods in their fate--and1 above all else1 by portraying them as unrestrained in their emotions and limitless in their desires4 ,these are the familiar devices whereby aristocracy signifies itself4 ,and that explains why such men as ,matthew ,arnold and ,gladstone write volumes of rhapsody over ,homer4 ,there is in ,england a class which has invented ways of setting forth to the world the fact that it does not have to work for a living4 ,there are things this class can do which the vulgar herd cannot do2 and one of these things is to read and appreciate ,latin and ,greek literature4 ,homer is to the ,british world of culture what the top-hat is to the ,british world sartorial4 ,homer serves these purposes1 because he has the aristocratic point of view1 and gives the aristocratic mind what it craves4 ,just as we cherish genealogy volumes to prove that our ancestors came over in the ,mayflower1 so the ,homeric minstrel chanted a catalogue of the ships which had taken part in the ,trojan war4 ,and just as our members of good society preach 8law and order0 to the lower classes1 so in the ,homeric poems it is made clear that the common soldier exists to shed his blood for the glory of his chief4 ,only once does a common man lift his voice in the 8,iliad0--the famous scene in the council where ,thersites dares to rise up4 ,he is represented as a hunchbacked and offensive brawler2 he is overwhelmed with ridicule1 and finally receives a sound thrashing from ,ulysses1 called 8the wily10 the ,greek ideal of the shrewd and sensible man of the world4 8,the sovereignty of the many is not good10 declares this 8wily0 one2 8let there be one sovereign1 one king40 ,we shall find that the bards of aristocracy seldom neglect to flatter their masters by showing some rebel thus being taught his place4 ,we shall find ,shakespeare treating ,jack ,cade precisely as ,homer treats ,thersites2 neither stopping for a moment to inquire whether the grumbler had any just cause to grumble4 ,we shall find also that leisure-class critics always accept these scenes as pure and undefiled 8art10 and are shocked by the suggestion of their mighty minstrels stooping to propaganda in the interest of those who pay them4 ,in those early days the pay was poor2 if legend is to be trusted1 ,homer wandered blind and friendless among the ,greek towns1 which afterwards claimed the honor of being his birthplace4 ,says the epigram3 ,seven wealthy towns contend for ,homer dead1 ,through which the living ,homer begged his bread4 ,taking the 8,iliad0 on the basis of literature1 we say it contains fine poetry1 and vivid pictures of old-time manners1 fascinating to read about--if you come on them while you are young4 ,there is a stage of life when we are nave and uncritical in our acceptance of 8heroism40 ,we adopt a certain shining person1 we share his glories1 we go out to battle with him1 we thrill to every stroke of his broad sword1 we shout when he wins the victory--and never reflect that we might exactly as well be interested in the other fellow1 who has exactly as much right to survive4 ,the average person reaches that age of hero-worship at twelve years1 and passes it at sixteen1 if he passes it at all4 ,let children read the 8,odyssey0 in a good translation2 they will enjoy these perils and later on they will discover that the universe has not yet been entirely explored--there are perils in the starry spaces1 and in the deeps of our minds4 ,,chapter ,,xix ,,hundred ,,per ,,cent ,,athenian ,once in their history fate provided the ,greeks with a great cause2 that was in the fifth century1 when the gigantic ,juggernaut of ,persia came rolling down upon them4 ,king ,xerxes assembled his barbarian hordes1 his tribes of wild horsemen and his phalanxes of slaves1 his war elephants and his chariots4 ,compared with these invaders1 the ,greeks were modern civilized men2 free men1 holding in their minds all the treasures of the future4 ,they forgot their state jealousies and civic factions1 and rallied and saved their culture4 ,from that national impulse came practically everything that is worth while in the 8classics40 ,it was here that the ,greek spirit achieved self-consciousness2 it was here that ,greek patriotism and ,greek religion found their justification1 their validity as propaganda for great art4 ,among the ,athenian captains who fought at ,marathon was one by the name of schylus4 ,he returned1 full of the pride of his race1 and wrote a tragedy1 8,the ,persians10 around the story of the king whom he had helped to defeat2 the climax of the drama being the battle in which the poet had been a leader4 ,it was ,greek patriotic and religious propaganda without any thought of disguise2 its purpose being to portray the downfall of despotism4 ,the play was a popular success1 and made schylus the national poet1 not merely of ,athens1 but of all the ,greeks4 ,he wrote other plays of the same religious and patriotic sort1 and he never feared to put in whatever moral teachings he thought his audience needed4 8,obedience is the mother of success1 bringing safety10 summed up his political creed2 so1 needless to say1 he belonged to the conservative party4 ,so little was he afraid of 8propaganda0 that in 8,the ,seven ,against ,thebes0 he praised by name the statesman ,aristides1 who was present in the audience4 ,this kind of topical illusion 8brought down the house0 in ancient ,athens1 precisely as it would in ,new ,york today4 ,the sculptors and architects and other artists of ,greece felt the same patriotic and religious thrill1 the same consciousness of a sublime destiny2 they labored with burning faith to glorify the gods and demigods1 the ancestors and rulers who had made them masters of the land4 ,as a memorial to the victory of ,marathon the ,greeks instituted national games1 which took place every four years1 and were a means of uniting the various tribes in worship of their gods4 ,there was the keenest rivalry1 and the ambition of ,greek gentlemen was to win the crowns and laurel wreaths4 ,when they had won1 they wanted the fact to be known2 so they paid poets who could sing their achievements in glorious verses4 ,the poet ,pindar became a high-class publicity man for these aristocratic sportsmen2 also he sang the praises of whatever tyrants held power in the ,greek cities1 making them splendid and heroic1 regardless of how unprincipled and cruel they might be4 ,the production of the dramas was also a kind of game4 ,each playwright found a wealthy patron to pay the expenses of drilling and equipping the chorus for his play2 then1 if the play carried off the prize1 the wealthy gentleman built a monument to his own generosity2 and so we saw1 lining the streets of ,athens1 the choregic monuments of ,andrew ,carnegie and ,john ,d4 ,rockefeller and ,otto ,h4 ,kahn4 ,each poet seeking the prize would take the demigods and ancestral rulers1 and portray them according to his own interpretation2 incidentally he would use the chorus to discuss the current events of politics1 and to express his own convictions4 ,thus schylus wrote his 8,eumenides0 to oppose the abolishing of the ,areopagiticus1 an ancient court which met on the ,sacred ,hill3 just as if today a poet should produce a drama to combat the radical attacks on the ,united ,states ,supreme ,court4 ,another dramatist arose1 the son of a noble family1 ,sophocles by name4 ,he wrote some thirty plays1 and carried off the prize nineteen times1 and his rivals and enemies took pleasure in charging that he was greedy for money1 a regular old miser1 besides being exceptionally fond of the ladies1 and raising a large illegitimate family4 ,sophocles produced serene and beautiful works1 because he believed in the patriotic and pious traditions he served1 accepting the hideous stories of the old-time ,greek heroes and demi-gods as the natural fate of mortals4 ,he is the perfect type of the ruling-class artist who achieves perfection without strife1 because he is completely at one with his environment1 identifying the interests of his class with the will of the gods4 ,we shall encounter a line of such poets--,virgil1 ,spenser1 ,shakespeare1 ,racine1 ,goethe1 ,tennyson4 ,they feel love and pity for the unhappy children of their brains1 and they move us to grief and awe1 but never do they move us to revolt4 ,but now came another dramatist1 in a different mood4 ,this man looked at the ,greek legends and decided that they were not true4 ,he looked at ,greek institutions1 private property1 and state patriotism1 and the sovereignty of old men in family and tribe1 and he decided that these were not necessarily wise and permanent arrangements4 ,he set himself up as a propagandist of things that we call 8modern10 and that the ,greeks called blasphemy and infidelity4 ,his name was ,euripides1 and he took the heroes and heroines of the old legends and turned them into plain human beings1 suffering the cruelties of fate1 but fighting back1 voicing protests and doubts4 ,so came a string of plays1 jeering at militarism and false patriotism1 denouncing slavery and the subjection of women in the home1 rebuking religious bigotry1 undermining the noble and wealthy classes4 ,a play in which the women get together to rebel against war6 ,a play in which a devoted wife gives her life to an angry god in order to save her husband's life--but the husband is shown as an egotistical cad1 not worthy of this dutiful and pious ,greek sacrifice6 ,read a passage of the dramatic propaganda of ,euripides1 and realize how this must have sounded to hundred per cent ,athenian patriots--and right in the midst of a war to the death with ,sparta3 ,doth some one say that there be gods above8 ,there are not2 no1 there are not4 ,let no fool1 ,led by the old false fable1 thus deceive you4 ,look at the facts themselves1 yielding my words ,no undue credence2 for ,i say that kings ,kill1 rob1 break oaths1 lay cities waste by fraud1 ,and doing thus are happier than those ,who live calm pious lives day after day4 ,how many little states that serve the gods ,are subject to the godless but more strong1 ,made slaves by might of a superior army6 ,,chapter ,,xx ,,the ,,funny ,,man ,,of ,,reaction ,needless to say1 the ,bolshevik sentiments of ,euripides were not proclaimed before the altar of ,dionysus without protest on the part of the orthodox4 ,there rose up another dramatist1 this time a comedian1 to champion the ancient and honorable traditions of ,athens4 ,aristophanes was his name1 and he was one of the world's great masters of the comic line4 ,he had infinite verve and wit and imagination2 you can read him today and laugh out loud--even while his reactionary ideas make you cross4 ,the point to be got clear is that right or wrong1 this poet is altogether a propagandist2 a political campaigner1 full of the most bitter fury against his enemies1 attacking them by name1 lampooning them1 ridiculing them1 not scrupling even to tell vicious falsehoods about them4 ,he wrote his plays to advocate this thesis or that thesis2 he arranged his incidents to exhibit this or that aspect of the thesis2 he chose his characters1 either to voice his own convictions1 or to make the opposite convictions absurd4 ,not merely do his characters make long speeches in which they set forth the poet's ideas2 at any time in the course of the action the poet will wave these characters one side1 and step out in the form of the chorus and say what he thinks1 arguing and pleading with the audience1 scolding at them1 denouncing his enemies1 explaining his previous actions1 discussing his present play--even going so far as to explain to the audience why they should award the prize to ,aristophanes and not to somebody else6 ,i doubt if there has ever been a bolder propagandist using the stage2 ,i doubt if the propertied classes and the partisans of tradition ever had a more vigorous defender2 and this1 don't fail to note1 in a world dramatist1 a 8classic0 of history's greatest 8art for art's sake0 period6 ,the amazing modernness of ,aristophanes is what strikes us most4 ,there is hardly a single one of our present-day contentious questions he does not discuss at length4 ,he has the malicious wit of the ,new ,york 8,sun0 in the days of ,dana2 he has the fun of ,stephen ,leacock1 whose comical tales ridicule every new and sensible idea the human mind can conceive4 ,again1 one thinks of the verses of ,wallace ,irwin--except that ,aristophanes sincerely held his convictions1 whereas ,mr4 ,irwin's wit appears to be directed by his newest publisher4 ,aristophanes was a gentleman1 in the ,english sense of the word1 and wrote for other gentlemen4 ,just as in ,england during the late war we observed the manufacturers of beer and munitions rising to power and turning the aristocracy out of their castles1 so during the ,peloponnesian war ,aristophanes saw his cultured class dispossessed by newly rich traders4 ,there is a scene in the 8,knights0 in which he denounces them2 they are 8mongers10 a whole succession of 8mongers0--topical allusions which the audience received with roars of laughter4 ,first came a rope-monger to govern the state1 and then a mutton-monger2 now there was a leather-monger--,cleon1 ruler of the city1 who sat in the audience and heard himself abused4 ,athens could go only one stage lower1 said ,aristophanes1 and he produced an offal-monger1 and recited to this person a list of his vices1 which proved him fit to take charge of public affairs4 ,as to ,cleon1 the poet objected that his political manners were rude2 and in order to set him a good example1 described him as 8a whale that keeps a public house and has a voice like a pig on fire60 ,this was in war-time--and imagine what would have happened to a playwright who produced a play in ,washington1 ,d4 ,c41 in the year #aiah1 describing the ,president of the ,united ,states in similar language6 ,again1 ,aristophanes produced a play denouncing his city for its shabby treatment of its tributary states4 ,he produced this play while ambassadors from those states were in the audience1 attending a council of the empire4 ,for this ,cleon had the poet prosecuted and fined2 so in his next production ,aristophanes comes back1 proposing that the people shall kick out a number of rascals1 including ,all statesmen retrenching the fees and the salaries ,of theatrical bards1 in revenge for the railleries1 ,and jests1 and lampoons1 of this holy solemnity1 ,profanely pursuing their personal enmity1 ,for having been flouted1 and scoff'd1 and scorn'd-- ,all such are admonish'd and heartily warn'd6 ,aristophanes loathed ,euripides for having turned the ancestral heroes into weak mortals1 with sentiments and whinings about their rights and wrongs4 ,he dragged the poet down into hell1 and there beat him with all the weapons he could lay hold of4 ,he took the poet's play of feminism1 the 8,lysistrata10 and turned it to farce by that most modern of devices1 a strike of mothers6 ,a play in which the women of ,athens refuse to co-habit with their husbands until the husbands have ended the war with ,sparta6 ,also ,aristophanes loathed ,socrates1 because that philosopher taught the youths of ,athens to think for themselves4 ,to this the poet attributed the corruption of ,alcibiades1 the young aristocrat who had been a pupil of ,socrates1 and had sold out his country to the ,persian king4 ,he wrote a play called 8,the ,clouds10 in which he represented ,socrates as a cunning trickster1 teaching men how to advocate any cause for money4 ,he portrayed the philosopher sitting in a hanging basket in front of his house1 performing absurdities with his pupils4 ,it is exactly the tone of a 8,saturday ,evening ,post0 editorial1 jeering at 8parlor pinks10 and college professors who teach their pupils 8mugwumpery40 ,the time came when the mob voted death to ,socrates2 and this was the great triumph of the funny man of reaction4 ,but alas1 the death of one free-thinker did not suffice to bring the citizens of ,athens back to the simple life of their ancestors4 ,they continued to make money and enjoy themselves1 and to hire soldiers to do their fighting4 ,their dramatists developed the so-called 8social comedy0--that is1 pictures of the fashions and follies of the leisure class1 without any propaganda4 ,it is an invariable rule that the absence of propaganda in the art of a people means that this people is in process of intellectual and moral decay4 ,so now a strong man came down out of the north and took charge of ,greece1 and ,greek literature moved into the ,alexandrine period4 ,the center of this new culture was the city of ,alexandria1 in ,egypt4 ,the poets now took pride in their technical skill1 and wrote delicate and charming portrayals of the delights of love4 ,a horde of learned scholars busied themselves with criticism and interpretation of the works of the past1 and composed long epic poems dealing with grammar and rhetoric and similar subjects4 ,this too was 8propaganda02 but you note that it was propaganda of a secondary and imitative sort1 it was not produced by men who were doing great deeds1 and creating new forms of life4 ,alexandria was a cosmopolitan center1 ruled by a despot1 the home of some wealthy and cultured gentlemen1 who supported painters and sculptors and poets and musicians and actors to while away their boredom1 and to serve as their press-agents and trumpeters4 ,but the art of classical ,greece was the work of free men1 citizens of a state ruled by a larger proportion of its inhabitants than had ever before held authority in civilized times4 ,that meant throughout the community the joy and thrill of intellectual adventure1 it meant a great leap of achievement for the whole group4 ,such invariably is the origin of art which we now regard as 8classical0--and which we use to hold the minds of new generations in chain to tradition and conformity6 ,,chapter ,,xxi ,,athens ,,and ,,los ,,angeles ,there has been peace in the cave for a while1 because ,mrs4 ,ogi has been interested in learning about the ,greeks4 8,i perceive10 she says1 8that there are superstitions in the arts1 just as in religion40 8,exactly10 says ,ogi2 8and they serve the same purpose4 ,they begin as honest ignorance1 and are then taken up and used as a source of income and a shield to privilege40 ,says ,mrs4 ,ogi1 8,it strikes me the ,greeks lived in a country very much like ,southern ,california40 8,quite so4 ,the climate is the same2 and the rocky hills and fertile valleys1 and people living the outdoor life1 and giving their time to sports4 ,the one-piece bathing-suits that have come into fashion in our #8beauty parades' are about the same thing as the ,greek maidens running naked in the games4 ,and if you want to parallel the darker side of ,greek sensuousness--0 8,there is ,hollywood10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi4 8,there is all smart society1 as much luxury and wantonness as your thesis requires40 8,but then1 why has ,los ,angeles never had any art8 ,i know what you are going to say--our mental energy goes into real estate advertisements4 ,but joking aside1 why80 8,because the people here have never had a struggle4 ,they came into a country already prepared for them1 inhabited by tame ,indians living on pion nuts4 ,all the settlers had to do was to subdivide the land1 and raise the price once every year4 ,they are too polite to have an art2 if anybody makes a crude effort1 it is a masterpiece1 and we all get together and boost4 ,you can write one feeble book1 and live a life-time on your reputation4 ,los ,angeles is a fruit that was rotten before it was ripe40 8,what are we going to do80 asks ,mrs4 ,ogi4 8,we are going to take our choice between a social revolution and a slave empire40 ,mrs4 ,ogi is not certain about her choice2 she sits1 watching the entrance of the cave out of the corner of her eye--the ancestral habit of expecting some hostile intruder4 ,after a while she remarks1 8,i notice you didn't say anything about slavery in ,greece40 8,it will be better to deal with slavery in the case of the ,romans1 where its effects show so plainly4 ,the ,greeks had slavery1 but the force which destroyed their civilization was faction4 ,they had their #8world war1' and ,sir ,gilbert ,murray1 who knows them by heart1 has drawn a parallel between that war and ours2 it is so exact that it makes you laugh--or weep1 according to your temperament4 ,the ,greek struggle was between the ,athenian empire1 a democratic sea power1 and the ,spartans1 an aristocratic1 military people with no nonsense about them4 ,the war lasted for two generations1 off and on2 they hadn't developed the technique of extermination as we have4 ,but they had all the social and psychic factors of our #8war for democracy'--#8defeatists' and #8bitter-enders1' poets and propagandists of hate1 statesmen promising utopias after victory1 spies and informers and provocateurs1 refugees crowding into the cities1 landlords raising rents1 food famines1 rationing of supplies1 and profiteers coining fortunes out of the general misery4 ,and of course the demagogues and haters had their way2 ,athens was ruined and ,sparta was bled white1 and the ,greeks became subjects1 first of ,macedonia1 then of the ,romans1 then of the ,turks40 8,thus endeth the first lesson10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi4 8,and now for the ,romans40 8,well1 the ,romans didn't bleed themselves to death2 they were practical fellows1 with a business man's point of view4 ,they turned their deadly short swords against other races2 and when they had conquered somebody1 they put him to work for the glory of the ,grand ,old ,party4 ,they were #8hard-boiled1' as we say2 our big business men of the rougher type--old ,p4 ,d4 ,armour1 and ,pullman1 and #8,jesse ,james' ,hill1 and ,harriman1 and the elder ,morgan1 and ,judge ,gary4 ,this banker in ,chicago that the ,republican party has just put over on us as vice-president1 ,general #8,helen ,maria' ,dawes--he commanded an army against the ,germans1 and having conquered them1 he goes back to put them under bond1 to set them at work for long hours1 and drain the milk out of the mothers' breasts1 and feed it to the international bankers1 instead of to the ,german infants4 ,that was a perfect ,roman job1 and ,general ,helen ,maria would have been the boy after the ,romans' own heart2 they would have made him a prefect over the whole of ,asia ,minor1 or ,northern ,africa1 or ,spain1 and he would have come home a millionaire--but never so rich as the head of one of the ,morgan banks in ,chicago60 8,i shouldn't think you'd get much art out of people like that10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi4 8,but go ahead and tell us the story40 ,,chapter ,,xxii ,,the ,,slave ,,empire ,rome1 like all other nations1 was founded by stern1 determined men1 who believed in themselves and in their tribal gods4 ,they conquered the peninsula of ,italy1 and built mighty cities1 and a net-work of military roads1 and aqueducts which endure even today4 ,all that time their state was a republic2 in fact1 they made the word for us--res public mean public affairs1 and all ,roman citizens took part in them1 discussed and voted1 passed laws and enforced the laws4 ,they raised armies1 and built fleets of ships1 and conquered ,carthage1 and ultimately the whole ,mediterranean world4 ,but1 according to the custom of the time1 they enslaved their prisoners in war2 and so1 in the course of six or eight centuries1 ,rome provided the classic demonstration of what slavery does to civilization4 ,emerson has said that wherever you find a chain fastened to the wrist of a slave1 you find the other end fastened to the wrist of a master4 ,it is possible for a slave-holder to be a virtuous man1 but it is impossible for him to raise virtuous children4 ,slaves are tricky and dishonest1 full of suppressions and secret vices2 even where they mean well1 they debauch the young by waiting upon them and depriving them of initiative4 ,why should a young aristocrat work1 when he knows he will grow up to inherit papa's money8 ,in a few generations he is too effeminate even to fight4 ,why should he risk his precious life1 when he can hire common soldiers8 ,not only that1 but slavery undermines free labor1 and breaks down the farming class4 ,cheap food poured into ,rome1 and the farmers were ruined1 and their sons drifted into the cities4 ,the lands of ,italy were mortgaged1 and the money-lenders got them4 ,wealthy merchants and officials returning from the provinces became owners of vast estates1 while the cities were crowded with a hungry mob1 idle1 dissolute--and victimized by the owners of slum tenements4 ,you may see every bit of that reproduced in the ,united ,states today1 for chattel slavery and wage slavery are in their economic effects the same4 ,the only difference is that a process which took six or eight centuries in ,rome is taking one century under the stimulus of machinery4 ,the ,roman mob had the vote1 and they used it to get something for themselves4 ,there came class struggles1 bitter and ferocious4 ,two young brothers of the aristocracy1 ,caius and ,tiberius ,gracchus1 became champions of the common people--what we call 8parlor ,socialists40 ,they were assassinated1 and the partisans of privilege1 the 8old gang10 proceeded to slaughter everybody in ,italy who threatened their power4 ,there followed two generations of civil strife1 and then came a strong man1 ,julius ,csar1 who put an end to political democracy4 ,in history books that are taught to our school children today you will read that ,csar was a great and virtuous protector of law and order2 because the class which is paying for school text-books in capitalist ,america is waiting hopefully for the arrival of exactly such a man to put an end to the threat of industrial democracy4 ,so ,rome became in form what it was in fact1 an empire1 the most colossal machine for plundering that had ever been seen on earth4 ,a little inside gang of rich men ran it1 and kept the mob satisfied by bread and circuses and gladiatorial shows4 ,the ,roman emperors tried every form of debauchery and blood-thirsty cruelty1 incest and unnatural vice1 and crowned it by having themselves made into gods with their statues set up to be worshiped in the temples4 ,their heirs took to murdering and poisoning each other1 and ,rome was governed by palace revolutions4 ,then the army discovered that it could share the graft1 and the troops took to revolting and setting up their leaders as emperors and gods4 ,all the while the tribute continued to roll in--the wealth of the whole world squandered in one mad orgy-- 8,look here10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi2 8you have got in a solid chapter of preaching--and we are trying to find out about art60 8,i'm all through now10 says her husband1 humbly4 8,but no one could understand ,roman art without understanding the economics of slavery40 ,,chapter ,,xxiii ,,dumb ,,pious ,,neas ,in the beginning the ,romans didn't bother very much with art4 ,in their public buildings they were content to take over the ,greek styles--but making them heavy and solid1 so as to last to the end of time4 ,the attitude of a ,roman gentleman toward the fine arts reminds me of a wealthy ,southern planter whose son wanted to become a violinist1 and the father said1 8,i can hire all the fiddler-fellows ,i want40 ,the ,roman gentleman bought people of that sort--musicians1 dancers and poets with skill handed down from 8the glory that was ,greece40 ,until the republic was dead and the ,emperor ,augustus took the throne4 ,then came a time of peace1 and a ,roman scholar1 the son of a country proprietor1 looked about him1 and seeing the perils of internal decay and outside barbarism looming over his world1 he recalled the stern sobriety of the good old days1 and yearned to bring back the governing class of ,rome to reverence for their ancestors4 ,there is a report that the ,emperor ,augustus himself suggested the task to the poet2 anyhow1 ,mr4 ,publius ,vergilius ,maro1 known to us as ,virgil1 set himself with sober deliberation to the making of a piece of ,roman national and religious propaganda4 ,it was to be an epic after the fashion of ,homer1 written in dactylic hexameter1 like ,homer4 ,virgil cast about him for a hero1 and selected a legendary ,trojan named neas1 who was said to have fled from the ,greeks and to have founded ,rome4 ,the characters in ,homer carried an adjective before their names1 8the wily ,ulysses10 8the swift-footed ,achilles10 and so on4 ,therefore this hero must have an adjective1 and he becomes 8the pious neas0--the man who respects the old-time faith1 and preserves the old-time traditions of virtue1 sobriety and public service4 ,so here is an epic poem1 wrought with verbal skill and sincerity of feeling1 conveying to us the dream of ,rome as it ought to be1 but was not4 ,we see the wanderings of neas and his ship-load of companions4 ,we see him land at ,carthage1 and carry on a love affair with ,queen ,dido1 and then desert her--not a serious impropriety in ,roman days4 ,we see the founding father celebrating the old-time religious rites1 consulting the auguries and asking the blessing of those gods1 of which every ,roman had a little image in his home1 just as orthodox ,russians and ,roman ,catholics do today4 ,the 8neid0 is considered ideal for infliction upon helpless school boys2 it being full of that careful propriety and decorous tameness which represent what our children ought to be1 but are not4 ,the old professor of ,latin who inflicted the poem upon me was an ardent propagandist of the ,catholic faith1 and it was his hope that if we learned proper respect for the established religion of ancient ,rome1 we might some day be lured into similar respect for the established religion of modern ,rome4 ,we read1 or made up1 a phrase3 8,dum pius neas10 meaning3 8,while the pious neas0--4 ,we boys knew we were being propaganded1 and we resented it1 and this phrase gave us a chance to express our feelings4 8,the dumb pious neas0 became our formula4 8,what's your next hour80 8,oh1 ,i've got the dumb pious neas60 ,we would sit and solemnly translate a long account of a prize-fight--a religious prize-fight1 part of the pious games4 ,the antagonists wore no vulgar boxing-gloves1 but a mysterious1 romantic thing called a 8cestus10 which we did not recognize as plain 8brass knucks40 ,and woe to the student if the dumb pious professor happened to catch him with a morning newspaper under his desk1 reading an account of a prize-fight which had happened the night before in ,madison ,square ,garden6 ,woe likewise to the student who1 translating the rage of the deserted ,queen ,dido--8furens quid femina possit0--happened to be caught reading the story of some queen of the stage or the grand opera who had committed suicide because of a faithless lover6 ,does anyone question that the 8neid0 is propaganda8 ,if so1 ,i mention that the poet lost his country estate in one of the civil wars2 and on account of his beautiful verses the ,emperor ,augustus restored the property to him1 and made him a court favorite4 ,so in the 8neid0 we find this pious emperor described in the following fashion3 ,this1 this is he--long promised1 oft foretold-- ,augustus ,csar4 ,he the age of gold1 ,god-born himself1 in ,latium shall restore ,and rule the land that ,saturn ruled before4 ,that is a more direct and personal kind of propaganda1 the propaganda of a hungry poet in search of his dinner4 ,we shall find a great deal of it through the history of art1 and it is1 ,i am told1 not entirely unknown in art circles today4 8,i have here10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi1 8a letter from a ,professor who has been reading this manuscript4 ,he protests1 #8not in a professorial fashion'--0 8,naturally not10 says ,ogi4 8,that you cannot possibly know the old authors as well as he does1 who has given the greater part of his life to studying them4 #8,to say that ,virgil was a sycophant of a ,roman emperor is a very superficial estimate1 which overlooks the really deep matter in his writings4 ,to say that somehow there has constantly been a conscious trick played on humanity1 in defending and glorifying the ruling classes1 is merely silly4 ,there was no knowledge of a social question then1 any more than there was electric machinery4'0 8,that is important10 answers ,ogi1 8and ,i want to get it straight4 ,i should like to put an arrow on the cover of this book1 directing the attention of all professors to the fact that ,i do not state or imply that the great leisure-class artists were playing a #8conscious trick4' ,sometimes they knew what they were doing2 but most of the time they just wrote that way1 because they were that kind of men4 ,i have tried to make this plain2 but evidently the ,professor missed it1 so let me give an illustration3 8,here is a hive of bees2 each of these bees all day long diligently labors to collect the juices of flowers and make it into honey2 or to collect wax1 and build exact hexagonal architectural structures in which to store the honey4 ,now comes an entomologist1 and studies the life cycle of the bee1 and says that the purpose of the hexagonal structures is to hold the honey in the most economical fashion2 the purpose of the honey is to nourish the infant bees which will be hatched in the hexagonal cells4 ,now shall a critic say that this entomologist is #8silly1' because no bee can have understood the principles of economy involved in the hexagonal structure1 nor can it have performed chemical tests necessary to determine the nutritive qualities of carbohydrates8 8,the class feelings of human beings are instinctive and automatic reactions to economic pressure4 ,the reactions of the artist1 who seeks fame and success by voicing these class feelings1 may be just as instinctive4 ,but now mankind is emerging into consciousness1 and social life is becoming rational and deliberate4 ,i say that one of the steps in this process is to go back and study the life cycle of the artist1 and find out where he collected his honey1 and how he stored it1 and what use was made of it by the hive40 ,at this point ,mrs4 ,ogi1 who has been reading in her ,bible--known to the rest of the world as the ,works of ,g4 ,b4 ,s4--produces a text from 8,the ,quintessence of ,ibsenism10 reading as follows3 8,the existence of a discoverable and perfectly definite thesis in a poet's work by no means depends on the completeness of his own intellectual consciousness of it40 ,,chapter ,,xxiv ,,the ,,roman ,,four ,,hundred ,a few years after ,virgil came another ,roman poet1 whom ,i learned to read as a lad4 ,he also was taken up by the ,emperor ,augustus1 and wrote fulsome odes in praise of this emperor4 ,also he found a patron1 a wealthy gentleman by the name of ,mcenas1 who was really fond of the arts1 and gave the poet a ,sabine farm to live on4 ,this poet was1 ,i believe1 the first author who invited the public into his home1 and told them his private affairs1 pleasant or otherwise4 ,being that kind of a tactless author myself1 ,i early conceived a feeling of affection for ,mr4 ,quintus ,horatius ,flaccus1 known to us as ,horace4 ,for one thing1 this worldly wise poet knows how to tip us a wink1 even while handing out flattery to his patron4 ,for another thing1 his ,mcenas seems to have been a really worthy soul4 ,i know how easy it is to love a rich man2 but in ,rome it must have been hard to find a rich man who could be loved at any price4 ,horace was a man of humble tastes2 all he wanted was to live in his books1 and to escape the brawl and fury of politics4 ,we might have expected him to fall down on his knees and kiss the hand of a man who gave him a quiet home1 with fruit-trees around him1 and snow-capped mountains in the distance1 and a crackling log fire in winter-time4 ,but1 as a matter of fact1 the poet was quite decent about it4 ,he asserted the right of a man of letters to live an independent life--quite a 8modern0 idea1 and hard for brutal rich ,romans to understand4 ,every now and then ,horace would have to visit his patron and friend1 and meet some of these haughty conquerors of the world1 and be put in his place by them4 ,the father of ,horace was what the ,romans called a 8freedman02 that is1 he had formerly been a slave1 and the great world sneered at the poet on that account4 ,but instead of being ashamed of his ancestry1 and trying to hide it1 ,horace put his old father into his books1 for all ,rome to meet4 ,yes1 said the poet1 that fond old freedman father brought his little boy to ,rome to get an education1 and walked every day to school with him1 carrying his books and slate4 ,we can honor this honest gentleman1 and read his charming verses with pleasure--but without committing the absurdities of the classical tradition1 which ranks ,horace as a great poet4 ,he was a pioneer man of letters1 and in that way made history2 but there is nothing he wrote that the world has not learned to write better today4 ,there are a score of young fellows writing verses for the columns of ,american newspapers who can turn out just as witty and clever and human stuff4 8,f4 ,p4 ,a40 has written 8take-offs0 on ,horace1 which shock the purists1 but would have delighted ,horace4 ,louis ,untermeyer has published volumes of such mingled wisdom and wit2 and there is ,austin ,dobson1 and above all1 ,heine--a man who writes verse of loveliness to tear your heart-strings1 and at the same time had the nerve to hit out at the ruling-class brutes of his age4 8,wasn't there a single artist in ,rome who revolted80 asks ,mrs4 ,ogi4 8,yes1 there was one4 ,he also was the son of a freedman1 and came nearly a century after ,virgil and ,horace1 in the reign of the infamous ,domitian4 ,his name was ,juvenal1 and he wrote satires in which he flayed the aristocracy of the empire for their vileness and materialism4 ,i once published a novel1 #8,the ,metropolis1' in which ,i did the same thing for the so-called #8,four ,hundred' of ,new ,york2 and it is interesting to compare the two pictures--0 8,now don't you start talking about your own books60 cries ,mrs4 ,ogi4 8,i don't offer #8,the ,metropolis' as literature1 but merely as a record of things ,i saw in ,new ,york twenty years ago4 ,afterwards ,i'll show what ,juvenal has to say on the same topics4 ,first1 #8,the ,metropolis1' page #bgh1 listing the health-cures of ladies in high society3 8,one of the consequences of the furious pace was that people's health broke down very quickly2 and there were all sorts of bizarre ways of restoring it4 ,one person would be eating nothing but spinach1 and another would be living on grass4 ,one would chew a mouthful of soup thirty-two times2 another would eat every two hours1 and another only once a week4 ,some went out in the early morning and walked barefooted in the grass1 and others went hopping about the floor on their hands and knees to take off fat4 ,there were #8rest cures' and #8water cures1' #8new thought' and #8metaphysical healing' and #8,christian ,science'2 there was an automatic horse1 which one might ride indoors1 with a register showing the distance traveled4 ,montague met one man who had an electric machine1 which cost thirty thousand dollars1 and which took hold of his arms and feet and exercised him while he waited4 ,he met a woman who told him she was riding an electric camel6 8,but of course they could not really succeed in reducing weight1 because they were incapable of self-restraint4 ,mrs4 ,billy ,alden gave ,montague a delightfully malicious account of a certain lordly fat lady of her set1 who had got the ,turkish-bath habit4 ,terrible to encounter1 most awful in visage1 she would enter the baths by night1 and all the attendants would rush into instant action4 #8,she delights in perspiring with great tumult1' said ,mrs4 ,billy4 #8,and when her arms have sunk down1 wearied with the heavy dumb-bells1 the sly masseur omits to rub down no part of her person4 ,meantime1 perhaps there are a number of guests assembled for dinner at home4 ,they wait1 overcome with drowsiness and hunger4 ,at last the lady comes1 flushed1 and declaring that she is thirsty enough for a whole #8magnum4' ,as soon as she is seated at the table1 the footman brings her a bucket of ice1 packed about her own special quart of champagne4 ,she drinks half of this before she tastes any food--calling it an appetizer4 ,she drinks so much that it won't stay down1 but returns as a cascade on the floor'--and ,montague had to stop ,mrs4 ,billy in her too vivid description of the sights which a certain unhappy banker1 the husband of this lady1 had to witness at his dinner-parties4 ,said ,mrs4 ,billy1 with her usual vividness of metaphor3 #8,it is like a snake that has crawled into a cask of wine2 it takes in and gives out again4'0 ,mrs4 ,ogi interrupts4 8,there is one thing ,i want to make plain--that you weren't married to me when you published that disgusting stuff40 8,all right10 says ,ogi2 8it shall be entered in the record4 ,but you must understand that ,i am not to blame for ,mrs4 ,billy's stories40 8,you were to blame for the company you kept10 declares ,mrs4 ,ogi4 8,i call that sort of writing inexcusable40 8,well1 ,i'll try again10 says her husband4 8,on page #cea of #8,the ,metropolis' you find a glimpse of the underworld of ,new ,york3 8,so far had the specialization in evil proceeded that there were places of prostitution which did a telephone business exclusively1 and would send a woman in a cab to any address2 and there were high-class assignation-houses1 which furnished exquisite apartments and the services of maids and valets4 ,and in this world of vice the modern doctrine of the equality of the sexes was fully recognized2 there were gambling-houses and pool-rooms and opium-joints for women1 and drinking-places which catered especially to them4 ,in the #8orange room' of one of the big hotels1 you might see rich women of every rank and type1 fingering the dainty leather-bound and gold-embossed wine cards4 ,in this room alone were sold over ten thousand drinks every day2 and the hotel paid a rental of a million a year to the ,devon estate4 ,not far away the ,devons also owned negro-dives1 where1 in the early hours of the morning1 you might see richly gowned white women drinking4 8,montague was told by a certain captain of police a terrible story about the wife of our very greatest railroad magnate1 who lived in a colossal marble palace on ,fifth ,avenue4 ,as soon as she perceived that her husband was asleep1 she would put on a yellow wig as a disguise1 and wearing an overcoat which she kept for this purpose1 she would quit the palace on foot1 with only a single attendant4 ,she would enter one of the brothels in the #8,tenderloin1' where she had a room set apart for herself4 ,there she took her stand1 with naked breasts and gilded nipples1 bearing the name of ,zaza1 and displaying the person of the mother of one of our most magnificent young lords of society and finance4 ,she would receive all comers with caresses1 and when the madame dismissed her customers1 she would take her leave sadly1 lingering1 and being the last to close the door of her room4 ,still unsatisfied in her desires1 she would retire with her sullied cheeks1 bearing back the odors of the brothel to the pillow of her mighty railroad magnate4 ,and shall ,i speak of the love-charms--0 8,most emphatically you shall not60 cries ,mrs4 ,ogi1 8,i think we've had enough of #8,the ,metropolis' and ,i won't hear of its being reproduced in this new book4 ,it's your crudest ,socialist propaganda--0 8,you're quite sure it's propaganda80 says ,ogi4 8,of course4 ,who would question that80 8,well then1 ,i've proved one point60 says the other4 8,i don't understand40 8,i have made you the victim of a mean little trick4 ,each of those passages starts out as #8,the ,metropolis'2 but then it slides into ,juvenal--the sixth satire1 dealing with the ladies of ancient ,rome4 ,the point of my joke is that you will have to consult the books in order to be sure which is ,juvenal and which is me4 ,of course ,i've had to change names and phrases1 replacing ,roman things with ,new ,york things4 ,and ,i've had to tone ,juvenal down1 because there are some of his phrases ,i couldn't reproduce--0 8,there are some you have tried to reproduce1 and that you're going to cut out10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi4 ,and as always1 she has her way1 and so it is a ,bowdlerized ,juvenal you have been reading6 ,,chapter ,,xxv ,,the ,,american ,,empire 8,you had your fun out of that10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi4 8,but of course ,i can't judge2 somebody who knows about ,rome may come along and show that it's all nonsense40 8,those who know about ,rome10 says ,ogi1 8don't always know about capitalist ,america4 ,there has never been such a parallel of two civilizations in all history4 ,i could write1 quite literally1 a whole book of mystifications--quoting ,american poets and statesmen and journalists1 and mixing in passages from the same kind of people in ,rome1 and unless you knew the different passages you couldn't tell which was which40 8,we still have our republic1 have we not80 8,in every presidential election for the past fifty years that candidate has won who has had the campaign-funds2 and he has had the campaign-funds because he was the candidate of the plutocracy4 ,right now we are at the critical moment--the age of the ,gracchi4 ,we are trying to rouse the people to action2 and whether we succeed1 or whether we are going to be slaughtered1 as our industrial masters desire and intend--0 ,mrs4 ,ogi's hand tightens upon her husband's arm4 ,she never has this thought out of mind2 and whenever in the midnight hours a cat or dog sets foot upon the porch of her home1 she leaps up1 expecting to see a company of bankers and merchants1 clad in their new uniform of white night-shirts and hoods4 ,our aristocratic party has what it calls the 8,better ,roman ,federation10 and collects lists of the proscribed1 and issues secret bulletins to its mobbing parties4 ,last week1 down at ,brundisium1 our naval harbor1 their subsidized mob raided a meeting of wage slaves1 beat some of them insensible with clubs1 threw a little girl into a great receptacle of boiling coffee1 scalding her almost to death1 and dragged six men off into the woods and tarred and feathered them4 8,what do you really think is coming80 asks ,mrs4 ,ogi4 8,there are two factors in modern civilization that did not exist in ,rome4 ,first there is the printing press1 a means of spreading information4 ,so far as the master class can control it1 it is a machine for debauching the race mind2 but in spite of everything the masters can do1 the workers get presses of their own1 and so get information which was denied the slaves of ,rome40 8,and the other factor80 8,the labor movement4 ,in ,rome there were some labor unions1 but they were weak and the slaves were an unorganized mob2 when they revolted1 as they did again and again1 they were slaughtered wholesale4 ,but the modern labor movement goes on growing2 it trains its members1 and gives them sound ideas4 ,so1 out of the final struggle we may have1 not another empire1 and another collapse of civilization1 but the co-operative commonwealth of our dreams40 ,this1 of course1 is outright preaching2 but it happens that ,mrs4 ,ogi has just received a letter about the child who was thrown into the scalding coffee1 so her husband gets his way for once4 ,besides1 as he explains1 there is nothing more to be said about ,roman art1 because there is no more ,roman art4 ,the plutocracy of the empire had brought themselves to a state where they were incapable of sustained thinking or effort of any sort4 ,the barbarian hordes1 which had been besieging the frontiers1 broke through and overwhelmed the ,roman empire1 and so came what history knows as the ,dark ,ages4 ,when ,i was a lad1 my ,catholic teachers explained to me that these ages were called dark1 not because they had no culture1 but because we were so unfortunate as not to know about it4 ,i was not able to answer the ,catholic gentlemen in those days1 but ,i can answer them now4 ,when groups of human beings kindle the precious light of the intellect1 they make it into a torch and pass it on to posterity4 ,that is always their first impulse2 and so we may be sure that if an age had no art1 it was a dark age4 ,,chapter ,,xxvi ,,the ,,christian ,,revolution ,it took several centuries for the peoples of ,europe to lift themselves out of barbarism and chaos4 ,then we find a new art developing1 an altogether different art1 built upon ,babylonian and ,hebrew foundations1 instead of ,greek and ,roman4 ,it meant an overthrowing of standards1 and a setting-up of new values--a precedent of enormous importance to social revolutionists4 ,what exactly was the difference between ,pagan and ,christian art8 ,the ,greeks said3 ,the human body is the most beautiful thing in the world4 ,to which the ,christians replied3 ,all flesh is grass4 ,the ,greeks said3 ,because the body is beautiful1 we immortalize it in statues4 ,the ,christians replied3 ,we are iconoclasts--that is to say1 breakers of marble idols4 ,the ,romans said3 ,material wealth is the basis of individual and national safety4 ,the ,christians replied3 ,what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul8 ,these ,christian sayings meant that mankind had discovered new satisfactions1 replacing1 for a time at any rate1 the customary ones of physical pleasure and domination over others4 ,these new joys came from inside the self1 and required a new word1 spiritual4 ,to the artist was set the task of making these inner qualities apprehensible1 and for this he had to have a new technique4 ,where the ,greeks had carved the body graceful1 the ,christians carved it with that ugliness which results from the ascetic life4 ,where the ,romans had represented their great men muscular and mighty1 the ,christians represented them frail and sickly4 ,the ,christians reveled in wounds1 disease and deformity1 taking a perverse pleasure in defying old standards--a process known to the psychologist as 8over-correction40 ,the two favorite themes of ,christian art became a man-god who accepted all suffering and humiliation1 and a woman-god who allowed the erring soul an unlimited number of new opportunities4 ,because this new art was trying so often to express the inexpressible1 it was driven to symbolism4 ,the painters and sculptors invented outward and visible signs of the inward and spiritual graces3 the cross1 the crown of thorns1 the sacrificial lamb4 ,the ,virgin ,mary would have a heart of radiant fire1 with perhaps a white dove perched on top of it4 ,the saints and martyrs wore halos of light about their heads1 so as not to be mistaken for ordinary beggars1 or for patients in the last stages of tuberculosis4 ,one should hardly need to state that all this art was propaganda2 it was permitted on that basis alone4 ,the significance of all this to social revolutionists lies in the fact that they also plan an art revolution4 ,what the ,christians did to ,pagan art1 the ,socialists now seek to do to bourgeois art2 metaphorically speaking1 to smash the idols and burn the temples dedicated to the worship of individual and class aggrandizement1 and to set up new art standards1 based on the abolition of classes1 and the assertion of brotherhood and solidarity4 ,just as the stone which was rejected of the ,pagan builders became the cornerstone of the ,christian temple1 so those things which are despised and rejected of plutocratic snobbery will become the glory of revolutionary art2 the very phrases of contempt will become battle-cries--the great unwashed1 the vulgar herd1 the common man4 ,the revolutionary artist1 clasping the toiling masses to his bosom-- 8,over-correction80 suggests ,mrs4 ,ogi4 8,partly that2 but also the longing for solidarity1 the enlargement of the personality through mass feeling40 8,but beauty came back into art10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi4 8,yes1 and that is an interesting story2 a drama of the conflict between ,god and ,mammon1 and the triumph of what ,i am calling ,mammonart4 ,i have pondered a title for the drama--something like this3 ,christianity as a ,social ,success2 or the admission of the ,martyr to the ,four ,hundred60 ,,chapter ,,xxvii ,,the ,,ins ,,and ,,the ,,outs ,there are two types of human temperament and attitude which manifest themselves in the world's art product3 the ,art of ,beauty and the ,art of ,power4 ,the ,art of ,beauty is produced by ruling classes when they are established and safe1 and wish to be entertained1 and to have their homes and surroundings set apart from the common mass4 ,i do not mean that simple and primitive people do not produce beauty of a nave sort2 but for such art to develop and mature1 it must be taken up by the privileged classes1 patronizing and encouraging the artist1 and making his work a form of class distinction4 ,the fact that the men who produce this art have come from the people is a fact of no significance2 for the ruling classes take what they want where they find it1 and shape it to their own class ends4 ,the characteristics of the ,art of ,beauty1 whether in painting1 or sculpture1 or music1 or words1 or actions1 are those of rest and serenity1 pleasure in things as they actually exist2 also clarity of form--because the leisure-class artist has time to study technique1 and knows what he wants to do4 ,in every human society there is one group which controls1 and another which struggles for control2 the 8ins0 versus the 8outs10 the 8haves0 versus the 8have-nots40 ,in every well-developed civilization this latter class will be strong enough to have its art1 which is apt to be crude and instinctive1 full of surging1 half-expressed and half-realized emotion4 ,such art lays stress upon substance1 rather than form2 it aims1 or at any rate tends1 to arouse to action2 and so we call it the ,art of ,power4 ,this is the art which is generally described as 8propaganda0 by established criticism2 the distinction being1 as we have previously explained1 itself a piece of propaganda4 ,the ,art of ,beauty is equally propaganda2 it is the gas-barrage of the 8haves10 and the essence of its deadliness lies in the fact that it looks so little like a weapon4 ,but to me it seems clear enough that when a leisure-class artist portrays the graces and refinements of the civilization which maintains him1 when he paints the noble features1 and quotes the imaginary golden words of ruling-class ladies and gentlemen1 he is doing the best he knows how to protect those who give him a living4 ,nor is he1 as a rule1 without some awareness of the harsh and rough and dangerous forces which surround him1 besieging the ivory tower1 or the temple1 or the sacred grove1 or wherever it is that he keeps his working tools4 ,but even where the artist is instinctive and nave1 the class which employs him knows what he is doing2 it knows what is 8safe and sane10 and 8of sound tendency02 it approves of such art1 and pays its money to maintain such art4 ,unless the society is stagnant1 like ,china1 its social life is marked by changes of power4 ,the revolutionary classes succeed1 and replace the old rulers2 whereupon we note at once a change in their art4 ,those who were dissatisfied now find peace2 those whose emotions overwhelmed them now find themselves able to order their thoughts2 those who were interested in what they had to say now achieve triumphs of technique2 in short1 those who were producing an ,art of ,power now begin to produce an ,art of ,beauty4 ,and so we are in position to understand what happened to ,christian art1 when the martyrs and the saints broke into 8good society40 ,the ,roman ,empire fell about five hundred years after ,christ1 and for another five hundred years the ,italian peninsula was a battle-ground of invading barbarian hordes4 ,when finally things settled down1 the land was held by a great number of feudal princes and plundering groups1 having their lairs in castles and walled cities4 ,christianity was the official religion1 and abbots and bishops and popes were robber chiefs commanding armies4 ,in between their military campaigns they took their pleasures like other princes2 and among their pleasures were those of art4 ,the inner emotions which ,christianity cultivated were free to those who sought them in monks' cells and hermits' caves1 but they could not be purchased nor rented out1 and they wilted in the atmosphere of palaces and courts4 ,so gradually we find ,italian religious art undergoing a change4 ,the saints become gentlemen of refinement wearing scholars' robes2 ,jesus becomes a heavenly prince1 in spotless linen garments and a golden crown1 casting benevolent looks upon the clergy2 the ,virgin ,mary becomes the favorite mistress of a duke or abbot or pope--or perhaps the painter's own mistress4 ,this latter arrangement is common1 for business reasons easy to understand4 ,the lady is at hand1 and has nothing to do while the painter is painting2 he gets the service of a model free1 he flatters his lady love's vanity1 and at the same time he keeps her safe from other painters4 ,so the poison of luxury creeps into what is supposed to be religious art2 and we see the symbols of martyrdom and holy sacrifice employed to glorify the vanities and cloak the vices of the predatory classes4 ,but the soul of man never dies2 it goes on struggling for justice and brotherhood1 in spite of all betrayal and persecution4 ,so inside the church and outside comes a long line of heroic souls1 fighting to restore the primitive simplicity and honesty of the faith4 ,the struggle between the 8ins0 and the 8outs10 the 8haves0 and the 8have-nots10 takes the form of heresy and schism1 of mendicant and preaching orders and ,protestant sects4 ,young and obscure servants of ,god arise1 denouncing the corruption of the church machine4 ,some retire to monasteries1 spurning the wicked world2 others take literally the words of ,jesus1 and go out upon the road without scrip or cloak1 preaching to whoever will hear them1 and living on charity4 ,they are denounced and excommunicated1 their followers are slaughtered by the tens and hundreds of thousands2 but the movement persists1 and when the leaders die they are canonized1 and become in their turn themes for artists--to be 8idealized10 and dressed in spotless raiment1 and made fit for stained glass windows and the art galleries of prelates and princes4 ,st4 ,francis of ,assisi in the thirteenth century1 putting on beggar's clothing and being publicly disinherited by his father2 ,savonarola in the fifteenth century1 persuading the rich to throw their jewels into the flames1 and being publicly hanged in ,florence2 ,martin ,luther in the sixteenth century1 preaching against the sale of indulgences and nailing his theses to the church door2 ,george ,fox in the eighteenth century1 crying out against priestly corruption in the streets1 and jailed time after time2 ,bishop ,brown in the twentieth century1 kicked out of the ,episcopal church for repudiating dogma and defending ,communism--such are the figures which have kept the ,christian religion alive1 and such are the themes of vital religious art4 ,,chapter ,,xxviii ,,the ,,heaven ,,of ,,elegance ,it was in ,italy first that the language of the people became the language of culture1 replacing ,latin2 and the two greatest writers of this age afford us an interesting contrast between the ,art of ,beauty and the ,art of ,power4 ,the favorite ruling-class poet and novelist of medieval ,italy was the illegitimate son of a merchant1 who was recognized by his father and given the best education of his time4 ,he chose as his mistress the natural daughter of a king2 with this married lady he carried on an intrigue for many years1 and wrote to her long epic poems about ,greek heroes1 weaving into the poems elaborate acrostics and secret codes4 ,the first letters of the lints1 taken according to certain numerical systems1 made three other separate poems2 other letters1 chosen according to other systems1 spelled the names of other lady loves4 ,in such ways the skillful artists of the ,italian courts were accustomed to beguile their leisure1 wrung from the toil of a wretched enslaved peasantry4 ,this poet rose to fame1 and became the darling of the ruling classes4 ,he was sent as an ambassador on various important missions to popes and princes2 he became the favorite of a queen1 and did not reject her favor even when she turned into a murderess4 ,he learned to write beautiful ,italian prose1 a great service to his country4 ,he used his skill to compose a collection of short stories dealing with the sojourn in a country villa of a number of ,italian ladies and gentlemen of wealth and charm1 the occasion being an outbreak of the plague in ,florence4 ,these ladies and gentlemen did not feel impelled by their religion to nurse the suffering2 they were of too great importance to be risked in such crude fashion1 so they retired1 and passed their time listening to charmingly narrated tales of sexual promiscuity4 ,i do not mean to imply that there is nothing but smut in the 8,decameron0 of ,boccaccio4 ,we shall find it a rule throughout history that leisure-class ladies and gentlemen do not spend their entire time in trying new sexual combinations4 ,they have to eat1 and so their artists give us delightful1 appetizing accounts of banquets4 ,they have to drink1 and so their artists give us an entire lore of intoxicating liquors4 ,they have to cover their nakedness1 so we have a complicated art of dress1 a mass of subtlety constantly changing1 and affording traps to catch the feet of the unwary1 so that the sacred inner circles may be protected from those individuals who have disgraced themselves by doing useful work1 or by having parents or grandparents who did useful work4 ,also1 the ladies and gentlemen have palaces to live in1 and country estates to which they may flee from pestilence1 famine and war2 so we have the art of architecture4 ,because these homes have walls which must be decorated1 we have the art of painting2 and so on through a long list of cultural accomplishments4 ,moreover1 not all ladies and gentlemen have been able to exclude the natural human emotions from their hearts2 so in leisure-class art we have sentiments and sentimentalities4 ,we like to be sorry for the poor1 provided they are 8worthy02 so we have 8idylls0 and other sad1 sweet tales4 ,when we are sick with ennui1 we like to imagine going back to the country2 so we have a long line of 8return to nature0 arts--eclogues and bucolics and pastorals1 with beautiful shepherds and shepherdesses dancing on the green1 and country lads and lasses giving touchingly quaint imitations of the manners of their betters4 ,also we have in this leisure-class world vestigial traces of the sense of duty4 ,we take this sense and refine it or exaggerate it1 making it into something fantastic1 stimulating to jaded tastes4 ,so we find in ,boccaccio the famous story of the 8patient ,griselda10 a leisure-class model of wifely fidelity and humility4 ,she is married to a monster1 who subjects her to every indignity the perverted imagination can conceive2 but she endures all things1 and continues to be his patient and devoted slave1 and in the end she conquers her tormentor1 and brings about the necessary happy ending4 ,the legend of this most convenient lady represents a popular form of masculine wish-fulfillment4 ,giovanni ,boccaccio died in ripe old age1 and the ,catholic ,church took cognizance of his popularity among the ,italian people by preparing an expurgated and authorized edition of his 8,decameron40 ,from this edition they omitted no word of the obscenities1 but they changed each of the stories so that wherever ,boccaccio described indecencies committed by priests and monks and holy popes1 the said indecencies were transferred to laymen6 ,the tales of this darling of the ,italian leisure class remain today one of the most popular of books1 which every dirty old boy keeps hidden in his trunk1 and every dirty young boy reads under his desk while the professor of moral philosophy is lecturing on the social responsibilities of great wealth4 ,,chapter ,,xxix ,,the ,,muckraker',s ,,hell ,now by way of contrast we take the ,italian poet of revolt and moral indignation4 ,we have only to look at the pictures of this man to see that he is a crusader2 a lean1 hawk-like face1 stern1 bitter1 lined with suffering2 8the mournfulest face10 says ,carlyle1 8that ever was painted from reality2 an altogether tragic1 heart-affecting face40 ,there has never been a world poet so deliberately ethical1 preoccupied with moral problems1 and using his art as a means of teaching mankind what he believed to be sound ideas about conduct4 ,dante ,alighieri was born to comfortable circumstances in ,florence2 he had the education of a scholar1 and might have lived a life of literary ease4 ,instead1 he chose to take part in the tumultuous and dangerous politics of his city1 becoming one of the leaders of the republican party4 ,when the forces of the pope conquered ,italy1 he fled for his life1 and a sentence of exile was pronounced upon him4 ,this exile was a cruel hardship2 he describes himself as 8a pilgrim1 almost a beggar1 displaying against my will the wounds of fortune4444 ,truly have ,i been a vessel without sail and without rudder1 borne to divers ports and shores and havens by the dry wind that blows from dolorous poverty40 ,yet he never wavered in his convictions2 on the contrary1 by his writings he brought upon himself a confirmation of the decree of exile1 and an exile he died4 ,we shall not go into the details of medieval politics1 the complicated wranglings among various cities and principalities1 the warring factions in each1 plus the partisans of papal dominion and those of the ,holy ,roman ,empire4 ,suffice it here to point out that one of the greatest world poets was from the beginning to the end of his life a politician1 and took a vigorous part in the practical affairs of his time1 fighting his enemies hard1 hating them implacably1 and not hesitating to use his literary art to punish them in a future world4 ,when ,dante goes down into hell he encounters in the lowest pits of torment various ,florentine politicians1 who have betrayed and debauched his city4 ,how he regards them may be judged by the case of ,bocca degli ,abbati1 a gentleman who is found locked helpless up to his neck in ice2 the poet grabs his hair and tears it out by the handful6 ,the quality which ,dante especially loathed was greed1 8cupiditia40 ,he raged at the church of his time1 because it had accepted the 8fatal gift0 from the ,emperor ,constantine--the temporal possessions which made the popes into worldly potentates1 intriguers and heads of armies4 ,the two popes of his own time ,dante flung into hell1 and portrayed heaven itself as reddening with anger at their deeds4 ,st4 ,peter declares that each of them 8has of my cemetery made a sewer of blood and filth40 ,this is plain muck-raking2 and how undignified and unliterary it must have seemed to the cultured prelates of the fourteenth century6 ,it seems that way to modern critics also4 ,albert ,mordell has published a book entitled 8,dante and ,other ,waning ,classics10 in which he argues that the 8,divine ,comedy0 is ugly1 as well as out of date1 with its elaborate symbolism derived from church legend1 and from ,greek and ,latin mythology1 combined and complicated by scholastic subtlety4 ,mr4 ,mordell is one of those who think that art ought not to preach2 and certainly ,dante does not shirk this issue--he tells us in plain words3 8,the kind of philosophy under which we proceed in the whole and in the part is moral philosophy or ethics2 because the whole was undertaken not for speculation but for use40 ,what are the moral problems which occupied the soul of ,dante1 and have these problems any interest for us8 ,there are two which ,i believe will always concern mankind4 ,first1 the problem of divine justice4 ,how does it happen that the wicked flourish8 ,how shall we explain their power to oppress the innocent8 ,if ,god has power to prevent it1 why does ,he not use that power8 ,dante traveled to the depths of hell and ascended through purgatory to heaven1 seeking answers to these questions4 ,our only advantage over him is that we do not even think we can answer4 ,the second great problem is that of love4 ,the ,christian revolution had brought with it a new attitude toward womanhood4 ,mankind made the discovery of what the psycho-analysts call the sublimation of sex1 that gratification withheld acts as a stimulus to all the psychic being4 ,so the simple naturalism of the ,greeks was replaced by the romanticism of the ,middle ,ages2 and ,dante's whole being1 his total art product1 was illuminated by the vision of a great and wonderful love1 which began by a chance meeting with a nine-year-old girl1 and continued without physical expression through the poet's whole life4 ,no student of the science of sex today would accept ,dante's attitude as sound or sensible2 nevertheless1 we are stirred by his exaltation of the ideal woman1 and the ,beatific ,vision which she brings to his soul4 ,in ,dante's pilgrimage through hell he accepted the leadership of ,virgil4 ,this was because he honored in the ,roman poet those factors we have stressed--the moral earnestness1 the effort of a lofty soul to rescue a civilization4 ,in ,dante's time the cultured world was just making the discovery of ,greek and ,roman art1 and was all a-thrill with the wonder of a past age1 rescued after a thousand years3 the ,renaissance1 or re-birth1 we call it4 ,we may understand how it was by recalling our own excitement over the tomb of ,king ,tutankhamen4 ,let us suppose that in that tomb had been found ,egyptian literary masterpieces1 which revealed the existence of a ,socialist civilization in ancient ,egypt4 ,there was a mighty king who had been just to the poor1 who had abolished exploitation by the landlords1 and had kept the peace with other nations4 ,a ,socialist poet of our day1 wishing to satirize the 8war for democracy0 by locating its leaders in hell1 would take this ancient ,egyptian king for a guide1 and would exchange fraternal greetings with his royal comrade1 and discuss with him political conditions both in ancient ,egypt and in modern ,america4 ,and in the nethermost pits the poet would meet ,lloyd ,george and ,clemenceau and ,woodrow ,wilson1 together with the rowdies and bullies whom these statesmen turned loose upon mankind4 ,attorney-,general ,palmer1 for example1 would be represented as a devil with a long barbed tail2 the poet would seize this tail and twist it1 and the attorney-general would howl and shriek1 and a radical audience would be delighted4 ,but respectable critics would turn up their noses1 saying that of course no one would take such a thing for art2 it was the most obvious soap-box propaganda4 ,so the cultured ,renaissance critics looked upon ,dante as a crude and 8popular0 person2 the highly cultured ,bishop della ,casa spoke patronizingly concerning 8the rustic homeliness of his language and style1 his lack of decorum and grace40 ,if space permitted ,i could show you that every truly vital artist who has ever lived has been thus dealt with by the academic critics of his own time4 ,,chapter ,,xxx ,,the ,,pious ,,poisoners ,the ,italian princes were no more influenced by the moral austerity of ,dante than the ,roman ruling class had been by ,virgil4 ,medieval ,italy traveled the same road as imperial ,rome1 and two centuries after ,dante we find the vicars of ,god on earth reproducing the worst crimes of the ,neros and ,caligulas4 ,alexander ,,vi1 the ,borgia pope1 purchased his high office1 and then set to work to plunder the cities of ,italy and harry the whole peninsula with war4 ,among his children by his numerous mistresses was ,cesare ,borgia1 who became the commander of the papal armies1 and slaughtered and poisoned all who stood in his way1 including his own brother4 ,returning from his wars1 he would amuse himself by using his prisoners of war as targets for archery practice in the courtyard of the ,vatican4 ,in the end ,cesare died of wounds1 ,alexander died by poison1 and his daughter ,lucrezia poisoned her own son and then herself4 ,here was an ideal environment for the development of leisure-class art4 ,these popes and princes built themselves magnificent palaces1 and as a measure of soul-insurance they built cathedrals and churches4 ,they were willing to spend fortunes upon famous artists2 and the artists1 needless to say1 were willing to take the money4 ,browning has a poem1 8,the ,bishop ,orders ,his ,tomb at ,st4 ,praxed's ,church10 a vivid picture of the attitude of mind of these pious poisoners and artistic assassins4 ,the bishop lies upon his couch dying1 and his sons1 politely known as 8nephews10 gather about him to hear his vision of a tomb which is to preserve his memory and bring peace to his soul4 ,he describes the treasures of beauty which are to go upon the tomb-- ,one block1 pure green as a pistachio-nut1 ,there's plenty jasper somewhere in the world-- ,and have ,i not ,st4 ,praxed's ear to pray ,horses for ye1 and brown ,greek manuscripts1 ,and mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs8 ,the pious soul goes on to specify his epitaph2 it must be 8choice ,latin1 picked phrase10 from ,cicero4 ,having got this-- ,and then how ,i shall lie through centuries1 ,and hear the blessed mutter of the mass1 ,and see ,god made and eaten all day long1 ,and feel the steady candle-flame1 and taste ,good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke6 ,the true 8art for art's sake0 attitude1 you perceive2 and under the patronage of such esthetic prelates1 the poets and musicians1 the painters and sculptors flourished in sixteenth century ,italy4 ,among those who were employed by the poisoner pope1 ,alexander ,,vi1 was a youthful painter of extraordinary ability1 ,raphael ,sanzio by name4 ,this pope was succeeded by two others1 who conquered many cities for the glory of ,god1 and spent millions of their plunder upon religious art4 ,so this young painter of genius was floated through life upon a flood of gold ducats1 and with his magic brushes he turned the blood and sweat and tears of the peasantry of ,italy into beautiful images of serenely smiling madonnas1 and enraptured saints1 and ineffably gracious ,jesuses4 ,raphael is ranked by many as the greatest painter in history2 we stand1 therefore1 within the very holy of holies1 before the shrine of 8pure0 beauty1 and it will repay us to dig into the roots of his life1 and see from what soil this precious flower grows4 ,he was the son of a court painter1 and his life was one of ease1 swift achievement1 and applause4 ,he was gifted with all the graces of body1 also a genial and winning nature4 ,he studied the work of one painter after another1 and acquired all the powers of each4 ,he became so famous that his life was 8not that of a painter1 but of a prince40 ,ambassadors from the wealthy and powerful besieged his doors1 and waited for months in hope of an interview4 ,he went about accompanied by a band of more than fifty youths1 pupils and adorers of his art4 ,he had one weakness1 which was for the ladies4 ,the popes and princes who cherished him sought to put loving restraint upon him1 and planned wealthy marriages for him1 but he could not bring himself to stoop to matrimony4 ,at this time he was decorating the palace of a ,sienese millionaire1 ,chigi1 owner of ships and of salt and alum mines throughout ,italy2 this gentleman1 discovering that ,raphael was so wrapped up in his mistress that he was neglecting the palace decorations1 solved the problem by a brilliant move--bringing the mistress to live in the palace6 ,in the end this darling of fortune died at the age of thirty-seven1 of a fever brought on by self-indulgence4 ,his adoring biographer1 ,vasari1 tells us that when he knew his last hour had come1 he sent away his mistress from his home1 8as a good ,christian should10 and so passed on to decorate the palaces of heaven4 ,what was the secret of ,raphael's fortune8 ,the answer is1 he painted the ruling class of ,italy1 in their physical beauty and their material luxury and splendor4 ,in order to flatter their vanity1 he painted them as all the saints and demigods of the ,catholic mythology4 ,every trace of asceticism is now gone out of church art2 the ,christian gentlemen and mistresses and virgins and gods and saints of ,raphael and his contemporaries are full-throated and full-bosomed and ruddy-cheeked pictures of prosperity2 their ecstasies have never been permitted to interfere with their digestions4 ,the angel comes to the ,virgin ,mary to bring to her the sacred tidings of her divine pregnancy1 and finds her seated1 not in a carpenter's hut1 but in a palace4 ,even when ,jesus is crucified and borne to the sepulchre1 the mourning ladies have not forgotten the proper arrangement of their hair and the proper costumes for the historic occasion4 ,says ,vasari3 8,our ,lady is seen to be insensible1 and the heads of all the weeping figures are exceedingly graceful40 ,needless to say1 ,raphael painted portraits of all the ,old ,men and the ,witch ,doctors of his time1 and he made them magnificent and thrilling4 ,of the portrait of ,pope ,julius ,,ii1 valiant war-maker1 ,vasari writes3 8,the picture impresses on all beholders a sense of awe1 as if it were indeed the living object40 ,later on came another pope1 ,leo ,x1 who in order to get the millions necessary for his family monuments1 and for the art glories of ,st4 ,peter's1 started a sale of indulgences1 which brought about the church revolt known to us as the ,reformation4 ,his portrait by ,raphael shows a ,tammany politician of the bar-room type2 and ,vasari tells us-- ,the velvet softness of the skin is rendered with the utmost fidelity2 the vestments in which the ,pope is clothed are also most faithfully depicted1 the damask shines with a glossy luster2 the furs which form the linings of his robes are soft and natural1 while the gold and silk are copied in such a manner that they do not seem to be painted1 but really appear to be silk and gold4 ,there is also a book in parchment decorated with miniatures1 a most vivid imitation of the object represented1 with a silver bell1 finely chased1 of which it would not be possible adequately to describe the beauty4 ,among other accessories1 there is1 moreover1 a ball of burnished gold on the seat of the ,pope1 and in this--such is its clearness--the divisions of the opposite window1 the shoulders of the ,pope1 and the walls of the room1 are faithfully reflected2 all these things are executed with so much care1 that ,i fully believe no master ever has done1 or ever can do anything better4 ,a man who can perform such miracles for the rich and powerful can command his own price1 and is master of everything except his own passions4 ,raphael's old uncle wrote1 begging him to return to his home town and take himself a respectable wife4 ,the young painter's reply has come down to us4 8,if ,i had done as you wished10 he says1 8,i should not be where ,i am now40 ,and he goes on to tell where he is-- ,at the present time ,i have property in ,rome worth three thousand gold ducats1 and an income of fifty gold crowns1 as his ,holiness gives me a salary of three hundred gold ducats for superintending the fabric of ,st4 ,peter1 which will continue as long as ,i live2 and ,i am sure to earn more from other sources and am paid whatever ,i choose to ask for my work4 ,and ,i have begun to paint another room for his ,holiness which will bring me one thousand two hundred gold ducats1 so that you see1 my dearest uncle1 that ,i do honor to you and to all my family and to my country4444 ,what city in the world can compare with ,rome1 what enterprise is more worthy than this of ,peter1 which is the first temple in the world8 ,and these are the grandest works which have ever been seen1 and will cost more than a million in gold1 and the ,pope has decided to spend sixty thousand ducats a year on the fabric and can think of nothing else4 ,while ,raphael was thus flourishing and proud of his world1 a ,german monk by the name of ,martin ,luther was nailing his condemnation of the papacy upon the door of the church at ,wittenberg4 ,but our painter-prince was so busy1 he had so many commissions to portray new popes and cardinals1 new annunciations and transfigurations and illuminations and immaculate conceptions1 that he probably never even heard of the barbarian rebel in the far ,north4 ,he remained to the end the perfect exemplar of leisure-class art1 and is today the darling of pious peasant-wives1 and sentimental school-marms doing culture-pilgrimages3 in short1 of all who wish to develop their emotions at the expense of their brains1 and to shut their eyes to the grim realities of life1 out of which alone true and vital beauty can grow4 ,,chapter ,,xxxi ,,the ,,papal ,,paymasters ,among its numerous artists of beauty ,renaissance ,italy produced one man who did not find life a garden of pleasure2 one man who1 when he sinned1 did not do it with easy grace and cheerful heart2 a man who faced the mysteries of life1 and took seriously the terrors which the medieval mind has conjured for itself4 ,this man was a rebel against the wanton and cruel spirit of his age2 a rebel also against nature1 those cruelties which time and death inflict upon our race4 ,he was a lonely man1 pursued by the jealousies and greeds of his rivals1 tortured by his own sensuality and by fears of eternal torment4 ,he lived a life of futile and agonized revolt1 and produced some magnificent and terrible art4 ,in this book it is our task to study the artist in relation to the masters of money2 and we shall find no more tragic illustrations of the waste that is wrought in the life of genius by the powers of greed1 than are revealed to us in the story of ,michelangelo ,buonarroti4 ,he is ranked as one of the greatest sculptors of all time2 he was also one of the greatest of painters1 and a great poet4 ,like most of those who have visioned the sublime and the colossal1 he was a man of frail physique1 fear-haunted all his life4 ,as a child he was beaten by his father1 who sought to break him of the desire to become an artist4 ,at the age of nine he was taken to hear the thunderings of ,savonarola1 another frail prophet who had arisen to denounce the vices of the church in ,florence4 ,when ,michelangelo was twenty-three1 ,savonarola was publicly hanged1 after having been excommunicated by the ,borgia pope4 ,the young painter at that time was beguiling himself with ,greek beauty2 but the terrible fate of the prophet cannot have failed to impress him1 and helps to account for the religious fervors of his later years4 ,two worlds struggled in his soul1 the world of pagan beauty and luxurious pleasure1 and the world of heavenly raptures and fanatical asceticism4 ,this artist's abilities were quickly recognized4 ,the same pope1 ,julius ,,ii1 who was showering ,raphael with golden ducats1 adopted ,michelangelo as his chief glorifier1 and the two of them spent a year or two preparing colossal plans for the pope's tomb1 something greater than any tomb ever seen on earth before1 a perfect mountain of marble1 with more than forty statues of colossal size4 ,here we see ,michelangelo's fate2 one of the great masters of life1 with a mighty message concerning the destiny of man1 he is obliged to get the money by which he lives1 and the marble which he carves1 from a vain and greedy politician in churchly raiment4 ,he is permitted to make statues of ,david and of ,moses1 of ,day and ,night and ,morning and ,evening1 and other great symbolic ideas2 but he must carve them for the tomb of some pope or potentate1 and must spend the greater part of his life in quarreling--not merely with this pope or potentate1 but with officials and subordinates1 all hating1 intriguing1 threatening to stab or to poison4 ,in the sentimental rubbish which historians and art critic's write about the ,middle ,ages1 we are told that mighty cathedrals and temples were produced by the co-operative devotion and reverence of whole communities of worshipers4 ,when you come to investigate the facts1 you find that they were produced amid a chaos of wrangling and cheating and lying1 exactly as a modern public building1 or a battleship1 or a fleet of aeroplanes is produced4 ,the chief architect of ,pope ,julius ,,ii was a dissipated and murderous rascal1 who was putting rotten walls into the ,vatican buildings--walls which have had to be repaired incessantly ever since4 ,he carried on intrigues against ,michelangelo1 and succeeded in persuading the pope that it was bad luck for anyone to build his own tomb while he was alive4 ,so the pope dropped the project1 and ,michelangelo was left in debt1 having to pay out of his own pocket the costs of transporting the mountain of marble4 ,the sculptor stormed the ,vatican and insisted upon being paid1 and the pope had him put out by a groom4 ,next he was required to make a bronze statue of his most holy pope4 ,he protested that he did not know anything about casting bronze1 but he worked at it for more than a year1 making a wretched failure of it1 and ruining his health4 ,then he was ordered to paint the ceiling of the ,sistine ,chapel4 ,he protested that he did not know how to paint ceilings1 it was hard and exhausting work2 but again the pope insisted1 and ,michelangelo spent four years at this1 painting his colossal and terrifying symbols upside down4 ,because he took so long at it1 the pope was enraged1 insisting upon seeing the work and criticizing it1 flying into a fury and beating ,michelangelo with his staff1 then sending a messenger with five hundred ducats to salve his feelings4 ,julius ,,ii died and ,leo ,x came in4 ,michelangelo had made a new contract with the heirs of the dead pope to complete the tomb1 and had started work on thirty-two colossal statues4 ,but the new pope wanted ,michelangelo's fame for himself1 and so for ten years the poor sculptor was pulled and hauled between two rival groups4 ,it was the fashion of other sculptors and painters1 when thus loaded down with work1 to hire a number of assistants and put the job through in a hurry4 ,but ,michelangelo suffered from conscientiousness2 he thought that nobody else could do his work as he wanted it done1 and he sweated and agonized and groaned under the burden of these contracts4 ,more marble was needed1 and he was dragged about between the rival owners of marble quarries4 ,the unsuccessful owners intrigued with the boatmen to make it impossible for the marble to be moved2 just like a certain teamsters' strike which ,i had occasion to investigate in ,chicago some twenty years ago--the riots and mobbings and showers of brick-bats and broken heads and bullet-riddled bodies were caused by a great mail-order house having paid for a strike against a rival mail-order house6 ,there came another pope1 this time a ,medici4 ,he wanted a tomb to his ancestors1 who were splendid and wealthy merchants in ,florence4 ,also there was to be a colossus in the ,medici gardens1 a difficult matter1 because of the lack of room2 ,michelangelo discussed the problem in a letter to a friend1 which has come down to us4 ,read this picture of a man of genius trying to please a wealthy and fastidious patron3 ,i have thought about the ,colossus2 ,i have indeed thought a great deal about it4 ,it seems to me that it would not be well placed outside the ,medici gardens because it would take up too much room in the street4 ,a better place1 ,i think1 would be where the barber's shop is4 ,there it would not be so much in the way4 ,as for the expenses of expropriation1 ,i think to reduce them we could make the figure seated1 and as it could be hollowed1 the shop could be placed inside so the rent would not be lost4 ,it seems to me a good idea to put in the hand of the ,colossus a horn of abundance1 and this could be hollow and would serve as a chimney4 ,the head could also be made use of1 ,i should think2 for the poultryman1 my very good friend who lives on the square1 said to me secretly that it would make a wonderful dovecote4 ,i have another and still better idea--but in that case the statue must be made very much larger1 which would not be impossible1 for towers are made with stone--and that is that the head should serve as a bell-tower to ,s4 ,lorenzo1 which now has none4 ,by placing the bells so that the sound would come out of the mouth it would seem as if the giant cried for mercy1 especially on holidays when they use the big bells4 ,michelangelo was in ,florence when the republican revolution against the ,medici took place4 ,the artist sympathized with the revolutionists1 against his patrons2 he proposed to make for the revolutionists a gigantic statue of ,david and ,goliath1 but they decided he had better use his energies in fortifying the walls6 ,when the city was taken1 and the slaughter of the rebels began1 ,michelangelo hid for a month or two4 ,then he was commanded to come forth and resume his task of glorifying his conquerors6 ,he did so1 and was put to work on the tomb of the ,medici4 ,needless to say1 the figures on the tomb are not figures of serene contentment and spiritual peace6 ,romain ,rolland describes them as an 8outburst of despair0 whereby the sculptor 8drowned his shame at raising this monument of slavery40 ,another pope came1 and wanted ,michelangelo for his chief glorifier4 ,the artist pleaded his old contracts1 but the pope was furious1 and commanded him to tear them up4 ,he was put to work on the ceiling of the ,sistine ,chapel1 and the result was the marvelous painting1 8,the ,last ,judgment10 in which all the terrors and torments of the ,middle ,ages are summed up4 ,it was one of the world's greatest paintings2 but the pious of the time were shocked1 and the pope put some of his other painters to putting panties on the nude saints4 ,from time to time other shocked ecclesiastics had this or that article of clothing painted into the picture2 and because they used any color they happened to have lying about1 we can now form little idea of ,michelangelo's vision of the ,day of ,doom4 ,all this time the artist was being hounded by the heirs of his first pope2 but the present pope insisted that he should be the architect of ,st4 ,peter's2 so here we see the old man1 over seventy1 still fighting the grafters and hounded by conspirators4 ,it appears that in ,renaissance ,rome1 when a grafter was caught1 and threatened to expose his fellow-grafters1 he was shot1 and the world was told that he had committed suicide2 exactly as it happens in ,washington1 ,d4 ,c41 in these our days of oil-thieves and bootleggers6 ,michelangelo was still afraid1 as he had been all his life2 but he was still more afraid of ,god1 and determined to finish ,st4 ,peter's as a means of saving his soul at the ,last ,judgment4 ,so he stuck and fought the grafters4 ,there came yet another pope--the artist had to win each one in turn1 thwarting a whole new set of intriguing enemies4 ,we find him at the age of eighty-eight1 exposing thieves who are building the walls of ,st4 ,peter's out of rotten materials--and around him the thieves are stabbing each other4 ,at last1 at the age of ninety1 he lies on his death-bed1 his terrific labors at an end2 and between his dying gasps he confides to a friend his one regret1 that he has to die just when he has succeeded in learning the alphabet of his art6 ,,chapter ,,xxxii ,,who ,,is ,,crazy8 ,when civilization emerged from the ,dark ,ages1 the fighting man went about with a hard-shell covering1 like a crab1 and was called a knight4 ,both he and his horse underwent a long training1 and when it was finished he was a fighting engine which could roll over anything else existing in the world4 ,he went on crusades1 and drove back the ,saracen and the ,turk from ,europe4 ,in these days of real and cruel danger he produced a genuine ,art of ,power3 for example1 8,the ,song of ,roland10 an eleventh century ,french poem1 telling of a terrific all-day battle against invading infidel hordes4 ,but afterwards1 when chivalry had become established1 it developed its ,art of ,beauty2 a fantastic literature about ideal beings1 who conformed to an artificial and complicated code of etiquette1 and spent their time rescuing beautiful young ladies from the claws of various monsters4 ,there grew up a whole genealogy of these literary knights1 and enormous long poems were composed about them4 ,when ,i was at ,columbia ,university1 acquiring culture1 one of the tasks set me was the reading of ,ariosto1 an ,italian poet of the sixteenth century1 and ,i valiantly struggled through a dozen cantos of these absurd adventures4 ,they resemble a ,griffith moving picture1 in which there is a villain engaged in an elaborate process of raping a beautiful virgin1 while the gallant hero is galloping on his way to a rescue4 ,but ,ariosto regales us with more details of the attempted rape2 for in these old times people were not afraid of the animal aspects of life4 ,in the distant island of ,britain some rough country fellows trained themselves to shoot arrows through the joints of the knightly armor4 ,a little later came the invention of gunpowder1 and that finished the hard-shell crabs on horseback4 ,but the literary world also resembles a crab1 in that it walks backward1 with its eyes on the past4 ,invariably you find that what is called scholarship and culture is several generations behind the practical life of men2 and so the poets went on composing elaborate and fantastic romances of chivalry4 ,the test of excellence in literature was the refinement and elegance and remoteness from life of this perverted leisure-class art3 until ,cervantes came along and laughed it to death4 ,he was born in ,spain in the middle of the sixteenth century1 noble but poor4 ,he first lived his great book1 and then in old age he wrote it4 ,he went to ,rome in the retinue of a papal ambassador1 and later on took up the chivalrous career1 a crusade4 ,the ,turks were in possession of the ,mediterranean1 and the ,spaniards were trying to drive them out2 ,cervantes1 though ill of a fever1 fought desperately at the battle of ,lepanto1 and was twice wounded4 ,after five years of such war he was sailing home1 when the ,turks captured him1 and for several years he was a slave in ,algiers--a gallant and romantic slave1 the darling of his companions and the terror of his masters4 ,he made several attempts to escape1 and finally was ransomed by his relatives1 and came home to ,spain1 crippled and poor--to reflect1 like so many returned soldiers1 upon the bitterness of dead glory4 ,he became a government agent1 collecting naval stores4 ,he was not a great success3 one of his subordinates defaulted1 and he was put in prison4 ,he lived in straitened circumstances1 in a household with five women relatives and his sense of humor4 ,then he tried writing2 for twenty years he wrote every kind of thing which a man of his time could imagine would bring a living1 but all in vain4 ,he was not a university man and so the critics of his time considered him presumptuous in attempting to break into their sacred ranks4 ,until he was fifty-eight his life was a failure4 ,then he hit upon the idea of ridiculing the established literature of chivalry1 by bringing it into contact with the every-day realities of ,spain4 ,he created a character very much like himself2 except that the old ,don ,quixote had read so many romances that his head was turned1 and he began to take them seriously1 mounted his old nag and rode out to rescue damsels1 and to mistake a barber's basin shining in the sun for a helmet1 and wind-mills for giants who must be overthrown4 ,the story rambles along from one comical adventure to the next1 and brings in almost every type of person in ,spain4 ,it became an instant and enormously popular success2 but poor ,cervantes got practically nothing out of it1 because editions were pirated all over the country4 ,he was a failure to the end--and curiously enough1 did not get any satisfaction even from his fame4 ,he was ashamed of his popular book1 and quite sure that mankind would some day appreciate his long poems1 8,the ,journey to ,parnassus10 and the pastoral romance1 8,galatea10 and the romantic poem1 8,persiles and ,sigismunda40 ,many of the world's greatest writers have thus fallen victim to culture-snobbery4 ,shakespeare was despised by the academic critics of his own time1 and apparently did not think enough of his own plays to see that posterity got a correct edition of them4 ,when ,i was a boy we all read 8,tom ,sawyer0 and 8,huckleberry ,finn10 and 8laughed our heads off0 over them2 but if anybody had suggested to us that ,mark ,twain might be one of the world's great writers1 we should have thought it a ,mark ,twain joke4 8,don ,quixote0 was produced1 definitely and deliberately1 as a piece of propaganda4 ,we no longer know even the names of these long-winded romances of chivalry1 so we do not realize that the author1 in ridiculing them1 is trying to teach us something4 ,also1 there is another kind of propaganda that ,cervantes put into the book1 his ideas concerning one of the gravest problems confronting mankind through the ages4 ,what shall be the relation of the idealist1 the dreamer of good and beautiful things1 to the world of ugliness and greed in which he finds himself8 ,he has a vision of something splendid1 but the world knows nothing about that vision1 and cannot be made to understand it2 if he tries to apply it1 the world will call him crazy1 it will treat him so badly that before he gets through he may be really crazy4 ,but what1 after all1 is it to be crazy8 ,is it to believe in the possibility of something splendid in life8 ,or is it to believe that life must always be the hateful and ugly thing we now see it8 ,nobody can be sure just how much ,cervantes realized all this himself4 ,there are many cases of men of genius writing1 out of their sorrow and their laughter1 things more wise and more deep than they know4 ,did ,shakespeare intend ,shylock to be a comic character1 to be howled at and pelted by the ,jew-hating mob of his time1 or did he realize that in this half-comic1 half-tragic figure he was voicing the grief and protest of a persecuted race8 ,what ,cervantes has done in 8,don ,quixote0 is to supply the critics and interpreters with material for speculation through many ages to come4 ,he gave his crack-brained old gentleman a devoted servant1 with no particle of his master's idealism or insanity4 ,sancho ,panza is entirely normal1 from the world's point of view1 a sturdy and practical fellow2 yet he gets into just as many absurd scrapes as his master--because he is ignorant1 and is betrayed by his own greed4 ,so we are brought back again and again to the question3 ,who is it that is really crazy in this shifting and uncertain world8 ,is a reader of literature insane because he sets out to apply the ideas of that literature in real life8 ,or does insanity lie with writers who produce and critics who praise literature which cannot be applied to real life1 and is not intended to be so applied8 ,if1 as ,i believe1 the latter answer is correct--then how many foolish persons there are writing books today6 ,it is interesting to note how many of the world's great monuments of art were produced by men who saw their country traveling the road to ruin1 and pleaded in vain with the ruling classes4 ,cervantes himself was a devout ,catholic1 and would not have understood us if we had told him that ,don ,quixote typified the ,spain of his time2 the ,spain which believed that the human mind could be shackled by religious bigotry1 and forced by dungeon and torture and the stake to accept a set of theological dogmas4 ,the ,spaniards slaughtered or drove into exile their most intelligent population1 the ,moors2 and ,cervantes approved it4 ,they set out to conquer the world for their hateful faith1 and ,cervantes saw their powerful ,armada overthrown and destroyed by the little ships of sturdy1 independent ,englishmen1 who had recently kicked out the pope from their country and taken charge of their own thinking4 ,this pope had by formal decree presented ,england to ,spain2 but the old1 crack-brained ,don ,quixote empire had been unable to take possession1 and the sad gentleman-soldier1 ,cervantes1 died without having understood any of these world-events4 ,,chapter ,,xxxiii ,,ogi1 ,,anglomaniac ,says ,mrs4 ,ogi3 8,this is getting to be quite a respectable literary book3 the very thing for club ladies here in ,southern ,california1 who hire somebody to read books for them1 and tell them what the books are about4 ,here you've read thousands of books for them60 ,says ,ogi3 8,they'll get all the culture of the ages in a lecture lasting three-quarters of an hour4 ,i remember your telling how the ,negro mammies chew up the babies' food for them1 and then feed it back into the babies' mouths40 8,yes1 but don't you tell that60 cries ,mrs4 ,ogi4 8,a little too ,renaissancy80 laughs her husband4 8,with reasonable care10 persists the other1 8you can break into literary society with this book4 ,i understand you're leading up to ,english literature2 and that is where respectability begins and ends40 8,you forget my ,russian and ,german readers4 ,also1 ,i'm sorry to report1 we have to have another chapter of economics and politics40 8,what's happened now80 8,free institutions have got a new start1 and we have to understand the process4 ,we have to make an appraisal of the parliamentary system2 and if we make one that is just1 we shall displease all parties to the controversy4 ,you remember how during the war this ,ogi family used to argue until three o'clock in the morning4 ,the most difficult question in all history had to be decided1 and kept decided for four years4 ,was there really a choice between ,british capitalism and ,german autocracy8 ,was there any real life left in the parliamentary system1 anything worth saving in political democracy2 or must we go over to working class dictatorship8 ,we listened to the partisans of each side as they stormed at us2 there were millions of separate facts1 and we had to appraise them and strike a balance4 ,and just when we thought we had it1 some ,irishman or ,hindoo would come along with fresh examples of ,british governmental imbecility40 8,but what's that got to do with the book80 demands ,mrs4 ,ogi4 8,we have to make the same decision in our study of world culture4 ,here is ,elizabethan ,england1 and we have to appraise it1 and appraise ,shakespeare4 ,are we going to agree with ,bernard ,shaw and scold him because he isn't a ,socialist8 ,are we going to agree with ,tolstoy and scrap him because he isn't a saint8 ,evidently ,i'm expected to do those things4 ,here's a letter from ,george ,sterling1 who disapproves most strenuously of my thesis1 but who says1 #8,from your point of view ,shakespeare is your biggest and most vulnerable game4'0 8,well10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi1 8what's ,shakespeare to you1 or you to ,shakespeare80 8,for one thing1 he's an old friend4 ,for another1 he's a whole universe in himself--0 8,surely a respectable opinion60 8,i'm sorry to be respectable1 but ,i want to be just4 ,it is easy to name great and important qualities that ,shakespeare lacked1 and damn him for that lack4 ,on the other hand1 one can think of hideous qualities he lacked--and honor him for their absence4 ,most important of all1 he wasn't a medieval bigot4 ,if he doesn't ascend to the heights of moral idealism1 at least he avoids wallowing in what ,sterling calls #8the liquid manure of superstition4' ,he is a modern man1 who looks at life with clear eyes1 and judges it on its own merits4 ,coming from ,catholic ,europe to ,elizabethan ,england is like coming out of a morgue1 and standing on a headland where the wind blows from the sea4 ,shakespeare knew that1 and all the men of his time knew it2 they were defending themselves from the ,inquisition1 they were saving the race-mind4 8,the future world poet was twenty-four years old when the ,spanish ,armada was harried down the ,english channel by the little ships of ,drake and ,frobisher4 ,he had already come up to ,london1 and perhaps he heard the guns4 ,anyhow1 all ,england knew that the pope had by formal decree turned over their country to be a vassal of ,spain2 they knew that ,king ,philip was preparing against them the most powerful fleet in history4 ,they waited1 in just such an agony of suspense as we knew during the long struggle in ,france4 ,and just as schylus was inspired by the battle of ,marathon to write ,greek patriotic propaganda1 so ,shakespeare was inspired by the defeat of the ,armada to write ,english patriotic propaganda4 ,now1 in weighing the value of that propaganda1 we have to judge the society in which ,shakespeare lived1 the balance of democratic and aristocratic forces1 of progress and reaction it contained4 ,we can't do that without a theory of political evolution--0 8,i'll tell you what you do10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi4 8,you start in and tell us some facts about ,shakespeare's plays1 and what's in them1 and work in your theory of political evolution as you go along4 ,then1 as ,i go along1 ,i'll take a pencil and mark most of it out60 ,,chapter ,,xxxiv ,,phosphorescence ,,and ,,decay ,a few months ago ,i had the pleasure of spending twenty-four hours with a ,chicago millionaire who specializes in knowing all there is to know on the subject of ciphers4 ,during the war he gave our army practically all its information on this subject2 so precious was his knowledge that1 for fear the enemy might get him1 he was kept for a year and a half locked up in the fire-proof1 bomb-proof1 burglar-proof and bullet-proof vault where his books and manuscripts are preserved4 ,sitting in this vault1 the owner showed me the greatest collection of ,bacon and ,shakespeare first editions in ,america4 ,for several hours he pointed out the ciphers in these editions1 and coming home on the train ,i read the narrative which is hidden in these ciphers1 the secret life of ,francis ,bacon1 ,lord ,verulam1 wherein he claims to have been a natural son of ,queen ,elizabeth1 and the author of most of the plays attributed to ,william ,shakespeare4 ,it seems strange that one has to learn about these things in ,french2 but so it stands1 in a series of articles by ,general ,cartier1 published in the 8,mercure de ,france10 ,september1 #aibb4 ,if ,i were going to have an opinion on this subject1 ,i should want at least two years to devote1 without interruption1 to a study of this cipher literature1 and to the lives of ,bacon and ,shakespeare1 and a comparison of their literary styles4 ,lacking this leisure in the present crisis of man's fate1 ,i content myself with saying that here is one of the most fascinating mysteries in the world1 and that ,i am not one of those comfortable people who know a thing to be impossible1 merely because it is new and strange4 ,having said this much1 ,i proceed upon the orthodox assumption that the plays attributed to ,william ,shakespeare were written by the actor of that name4 ,he was born in #aefd at ,stratford-on-,avon1 his father being a merchant who early fell into misfortune4 ,there are legends that the son was wild1 and ran away to ,london to escape prosecution for deer-stealing4 ,he became a hanger-on of theatrical companies1 held horses at the doors of theaters1 became connected with the ,duke of ,leicester's company1 acted in various plays1 was called upon to revise and patch up manuscripts1 and finally wrote plays of his own which were popular successes4 ,he made money1 bought several pieces of property at ,stratford1 won the friendship of some of the powerful and great1 and finally returned to his home town1 to die at the age of fifty-two4 ,that is all we know about the greatest poet of all time4 ,how he managed to escape attention1 how above all he failed to see to it that the world got authentic copies of his plays1 is a mystery only partly explained by the fact that playwriting and acting were disreputable occupations4 ,actors had been strolling vagabonds1 liable to be thrown into jail by any constable1 like a workingman out of a job in the ,united ,states4 ,only by getting the protection of some noble earl could they be safe from persecution2 and if you had become a friend of noble earls1 and a gentleman of property in your home-town1 you did not boast of plays you had written1 any more than if you lived on ,fifth ,avenue today you would boast of a saloon you had once kept4 ,shakespeare's first plays are romantic comedies in the style of the time4 ,it was the tradition of the pastoral1 fostered by elegant ladies and gentlemen who know nature as a place for picnics4 ,it is a world of beauty1 wit and 8charm02 everybody is young1 everybody's occupation is falling in love with some other pretty body1 and problems exist only to be solved in the last act4 ,when ,i was young ,i saw ,julia ,marlowe in 8,as ,you ,like ,it10 and was ravished with delight4 ,now ,i look back on it1 in the broad daylight of my present knowledge about life2 ,i recall the thousand traps into which ,i fell because of ignorance of sex1 ignorance of money1 ignorance of almost everything about my fellow human beings4 ,i recall the people ,i have known who fell into these same traps1 and were not able to extricate themselves1 but paid for their romantic illusions with poverty1 drunkenness1 disease1 divorce1 insanity1 suicide4 ,so ,i am compelled to declare that these 8charming0 comedies are as false to life as the average moving picture of our time1 in which the problems of labor and capital are solved by the honest labor leader marrying the daughter of the great captain of industry4 ,i have to go further and maintain that this betrayal of life was deliberate2 the writer himself knew more than he told us4 ,shakespeare is fond of jeering at the 8groundlings10 and those who stoop to tickle their unwashed ears4 ,in the ,shakespearean theater the cheap seats were in the pit1 or what we call the orchestra2 the aristocrats sat on the sides of the stage1 and frequently got drunk1 and amused themselves by sprawling in their seats and tripping up the actors and guying the show4 ,these elegant ones were not 8groundlings10 and it was no disgrace to a romantic poet to rise in the world by giving them what they wanted4 ,shakespeare was even cynical enough to laugh at them for their silly taste2 he called one of his comedy successes 8,as ,you ,like ,it10 and another 8,twelfth ,night1 or ,what you ,will40 ,this man was gifted with the most marvelous tongue that has yet appeared on earth4 ,golden1 glowing1 gorgeous words poured out of him at a moment's notice all his life2 he covered everything he wrote with the glamour of poetry4 ,this gift was his fortune2 but also it was a trap1 because it saved him the need of thinking4 ,it is a trap for us1 because it tempts us into sharing his emotions without thinking4 ,but force yourself to think1 ask yourself what is the actual value of the ideas the mighty poet is expressing1 and you discover that many of them are commonplace1 many are worldly and cheap1 many are the harsh prejudices of his time and class4 ,in these early days ,shakespeare wrote a long narrative poem1 which helps us to know him4 ,it is dedicated to the young ,earl of ,southampton1 his patron1 and is called 8,venus and ,adonis02 a typical example of the pseudo-classical romantic rubbish which the cultured world of that time called 8art40 ,nature has provided for the mixing and distributing of the qualities of living creatures by a system of sex exchanges4 ,throughout the higher forms of life1 and with men and women in their primitive1 natural condition1 the act of sex fertilization occupies less than the entire time of the creature4 ,but now a leisure-class arises1 parasitic upon its fellows2 and the members of this class seek to divert their idle time by the endless elaboration of the sex function4 8,venus and ,adonis0 tells the story of an effort of the goddess of love to secure the sexual attentions of a reluctant youth4 ,the striking thing about the poem is the extent to which the ,greek ideal of the goddess of fecundity has been debased--,i will not say to the animal level1 because the animals are decent and sensible in their sex affairs2 ,i say to the level of the high-priced brothel1 where the jaded rich are beguiled4 ,venus in this poem has no idea of making herself spiritually or intellectually attractive to the youth2 she does not know how to be sublime and goddess-like1 she does not know how to be wise1 or even to be witty and gay4 ,she only knows how to force her unwanted flesh more and more persistently upon the youth1 to wallow upon his body1 disgusting both the youth and the reader4 ,the fact that 8,venus and ,adonis0 is full of verbal splendor1 like everything else that ,shakespeare wrote1 makes it more and not less offensive to an intelligent person4 ,by means of our intelligence we have invented the microscope1 and thereby we know that decay is not less decay because it happens to be phosphorescent4 ,we can surely say that there was decay in the fashionable world of ,shakespeare's time1 when twelve editions of 8,venus and ,adonis0 were called for1 while for a mighty tragedy like 8,othello0 there was not demand enough to secure its printing until six years after its author was dead6 ,,chapter ,,xxxv ,,the ,,good ,,man ,,theory ,when ,i was young the orthodox critics of ,shakespeare taught1 and everybody accepted the idea1 that there was no poet who had been more aloof from his own work1 and that it was impossible to tell anything about him from the characters he portrayed4 ,but now comes ,frank ,harris with his book1 8,the ,man ,shakespeare and ,his ,tragic ,life-,story40 ,harris contends that no poet has revealed himself more continuously than ,shakespeare2 the character speaking out of the plays is that of a man tormented all his life by sensuality1 and fighting in pain and bewilderment to save a brilliant intellect from ruin by excess4 ,frank ,harris is such a man himself2 he makes no secret of the fact that this has been his tragic life-story4 ,so1 as we read the book1 our first question is1 to what extent has ,frank ,harris read himself into ,shakespeare4 ,it has been a long time since ,i read the plays straight through1 and ,i should want to do it again before ,i felt ,i had an opinion4 ,meantime1 we can say this much3 if the ,shakespeare of ,frank ,harris is not ,shakespeare1 but a work of imagination1 it is one of the most fascinating works of imagination in the world1 fully as significant as any character in any of ,shakespeare's plays4 ,all critics would assent to the statement that ,shakespeare began with youthful glorification of his leisure-class friends1 their graces and their charms2 and that as the years passed he met with a series of disillusionments1 which drove him to bitterness1 almost to madness4 ,but it is to be noted that throughout this period of disillusionment he remains purely personal1 he never rises above the 8good man0 theory of life4 ,you know how it is in our politics2 if there is corruption1 it is because we have elected bad men to office4 ,the test of one's ability to think straight on social questions is the outgrowing of this 8good man0 theory4 8,just a moment10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi1 who has not entirely outgrown this theory herself4 8,do you deny that there are some things a good man can do in the world that would not be done otherwise80 8,of course2 ,i'm willing to admit that any social system would work1 if we could manage to get good men in charge1 and to keep them there4 ,the trouble about evil systems is that they keep good men out of power2 they turn good men into bad men1 even before they get into office4 ,they keep us from finding the good men2 they make us think that bad men are good--until ruin has come and it's too late40 8,but think of the frightful pictures that ,shakespeare drew of evil men in power60 8,shakespeare was a man of refinement1 he loathed brutality and cruelty4 ,that was a part of his propaganda1 his hatred of power blindly used2 he comes back again and again to cry out against it1 to defend the gentle and the innocent and the kind4 ,in those ways he was far ahead of his time2 for those things we love him1 they help to make him a world poet4 ,but here is the point--with ,shakespeare it is all a family matter1 inside the leisure class4 ,some bad member of the family has got power1 and our attention is concentrated upon turning him out1 and putting in some good member of the family1 who will make wiser use of power4 8,we shall find that the leisure-class artist is frequently permitted this kind of criticism4 ,he has his friends among the ruling class1 he comes to think of himself as belonging2 so he has a right to find fault4 ,you know how it is with ,mrs4 ,ogi2 she will say things about her own family--they are ignorant1 they are arrogant1 they are this and that4 ,but it is the part of discretion for her husband to remain silent at such times4 ,mrs4 ,ogi will entertain the company with tales about the absent-mindedness and general absurdity of her own husband2 but it will be the part of discretion for the company to dissent gently from such ridicule40 8,if you stay married to me long enough10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi1 8you will know enough about human nature to be able to write a novel4 ,but now we are talking about ,shakespeare4 ,aren't you ahead of the time in expecting him to have revolutionary feelings80 8,not at all4 ,there was plenty of revolt1 both political and social1 in ,shakespeare's day2 there had been two centuries of social protest before he was born4 ,john ,ball1 the rebel priest1 had been hanged and quartered for asking the dangerous question3 #8,when ,adam delved and ,eve span ,who then was the gentleman8' 8,so1 if ,shakespeare had wanted to cast in his lot with the poor he had his opportunity4 ,but there was nothing of that sort in him4 ,he was a brilliant youth who had come up to ,london1 poor and friendless1 to become intimate with noble earls and wealthy gentlemen1 to dedicate his poems and sonnets to them1 and have his plays produced by their licensed companies4 ,if they proved faithless1 if they insulted and humiliated a man of genius1 if their brilliant ladies and dashing maids of honor intrigued with him and then betrayed him--he would fly into a rage and write plays of almost insane fury1 such as #8,timon of ,athens' and #8,king ,lear1' or pictures of grim and somber cruelty such as #8,measure for ,measure4' ,but when these plays failed1 he would learn his lesson and go back to writing romantic dreams1 pretty fairy stories like #8,a ,winter's ,tale' and #8,the ,tempest4' ,in these latter we find the wistful sadness of the old man who has learned that life is not the beautiful thing it ought to be1 but who sighs in vain for an all-powerful magician to come and set it right4 ,again1 you see1 the #8good man' theory2 while the social classes whose destiny it is to abolish parasitism are the object of ,shakespeare's haughty and aristocratic sneers40 8,ah1 now60 says ,mrs4 ,ogi4 8,that's the part of the story you're saving for a climax60 ,,chapter ,,xxxvi ,,comic ,,relief ,shakespeare's historical plays cover a period of three hundred years2 the breakdown of the feudal system1 and its replacement by a monarchy more or less controlled by a parliament4 ,we have ten plays dealing with this period4 ,some of them ,shakespeare wrote entirely1 getting his data from old chronicles2 others he worked over from older plays4 ,he was careless about his facts2 and how little grasp he had of fundamentals you may judge from the circumstance that 8,king ,john0 does not even refer to the signing of ,magna ,charta4 ,he might easily have had a character in this play make a speech on the subject of the people binding the insolence of their rulers4 ,but he had no interest in such matters4 ,what ,shakespeare did was to make a series of chronicle plays dealing with the intrigues and quarrels and fightings of the ,english nobility4 ,he followed tradition1 but never hesitated to change the characters in order to heighten the dramatic interest4 ,the result has replaced ,english history in the minds of all ,english school-boys1 and those grown-up school-boys called statesmen4 ,their national poet flatters their vanities and encourages their insular prejudices4 ,he did not like the ,irish1 he did not like the ,welsh1 he did not like the ,scotch1 he did not like the ,french1 and of course he did not like the ,spaniards4 ,he liked the ,romans1 apparently because they resembled the ,english ruling classes4 ,john of ,gaunt in his dying speech proclaims ,england in a series of rapturous similes 8this other ,eden1 demi-paradise 444 this happy breed of men1 this little world1 this precious stone set in the silver sea 444 this blessed plot1 this earth1 this realm1 this ,england40444 ,and that is all right1 that is the correct way for ,englishmen to feel about ,england4 ,but do they permit ,frenchmen to feel that way about ,france1 to love and defend their country1 and manage it in their own way8 ,the answer is1 they do not4 ,frenchmen are to see ,english kings laying claim to their throne2 they are to see ,english armies invading their country1 destroying their cities and laying waste their fields2 and they are to hear the great poet of ,england cheering on the invader with his golden eloquence1 burdening his play with wearisome speeches to prove the validity of the ,english claim to the throne of ,france1 and explaining to ,frenchmen that it is for their own good that their country is invaded by a superior race4 ,stranger yet1 we shall find ,american scholars and critics enraptured over such ,english imperialist poetry6 ,i go to my local library to see what the learned gentry have to say on this subject1 and the most up-to-date thing ,i find is a book called 8,english ,history in ,shakespeare's ,plays10 by a professor of a university in ,louisiana4 ,he quotes the passage in which ,henry ,v incites his troops to the attack on ,harfleur3 ,once more unto the breach1 dear friends1 once more1 ,or close the wall up with our ,english dead4 ,says our scholar3 8,we are now greeted by the noble strain2 a strain unworn by constant quotation1 unhackneyed by trite allusions4 ,like the splendid harmonies of a master-musician it throbs and thrills us as we read1 in spite of the declamations of the schoolroom and the parsing exercises of childhood40 ,joan of ,arc arose to inspire her people to drive out these invaders2 and the ,english burned her as a witch4 ,a hundred and sixty years had passed--surely time enough for sober second thought1 surely time for ,england's national poet to do what he could to wipe this blot from his country's good name4 ,but the maid of ,orleans had to look elsewhere for vindication than to ,shakespeare1 friend of the rich and powerful1 who never advocated an unpopular cause in all his forty plays4 ,he represents ,joan according to the basest of the prejudices of his 8groundlings02 a vain1 boastful creature1 unchaste1 and not denying her unchastity4 ,in the series of plays dealing with ,king ,henry ,,vi comes a still more significant incident1 the rebellion of ,jack ,cade4 ,for three hundred years the blood and treasure of the ,english people had been wasted in these foreign wars1 and incessant civil wars of rival earls and dukes and barons4 ,in the middle of the fifteenth century there was widespread distress1 and in ,kent occurred an uprising2 a popular leader took the city of ,london1 and forced some promises of reforms1 and was then betrayed and killed4 ,this incident fell into ,shakespeare's lap--an opportunity for delicious gentlemanly wit at the expense of the exploited workers4 8,be brave1 then10 cries ,cade1 8for your captain is brave and vows reformation4 ,there shall be in ,england seven half-penny loaves sold for a penny1 the three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops1 and ,i will make it felony to drink small beer40 ,just as soon as the ,cade of ,shakespeare gets power he sets himself up to be a nobleman1 and offers to strike one of his followers dead for failing to recognize his claim4 ,he addresses ,lord ,say1 one of the persons against whom the indignation of the people had been roused3 ,thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a grammar school2 and whereas1 before1 our fathers had no other book but the score and the tally1 thou hast caused printing to be used2 and contrary to the king1 his crown and dignity1 thou hast erected a paper mill4 ,it will be proved to thy face that thou hast men about thee that usually talk of a noun1 and a verb1 and such abominable words as no ,christian ear can endure to hear4 ,such is the wit of our gentleman poet2 and what is the comment of our ,louisiana scholar8 ,he tells us3 8,this savors of modern times4444 ,the demagogue has the ignorance of his audience on his side4 ,he has in behalf of his appeals that sullen jealousy of the masses who are conscious of classes1 that is1 of a caste above them and more accomplished40 ,to be sure1 the ,louisiana professor admits that ,shakespeare is here handling a great historic scene 8flippantly02 but then1 you see1 the poet had such a good excuse6 ,he was 8sorely in need of comedy for the tragic drama of #8,henry ,,vi'06 ,but ,i ask3 why could he not have made up some comedy dealing with noble lords and gentlemen8 ,the answer is3 ,it is a tradition of the leisure-class literature of ,england that the sufferings of the rich and powerful are dignified tragedy1 while the sufferings of the poor are 8comic relief40 ,the only way a poor person of any sort can get ,shakespeare to take him seriously is by being a devoted servant of some wealthy and powerful person2 for example1 ,old ,adam in 8,as ,you ,like ,it10 a part which1 according to tradition1 was played by ,shakespeare himself4 ,but when the common people try to do something for themselves1 they are clowns and fools1 yokels and tavern roysterers4 ,take the comedy scenes in 8,midsummer ,night's ,dream10 when working people actually attempt to give a play4 ,shakespeare thinks that no idea could be more absurd4 ,but nowadays working people give many plays in ,england2 there are radical theater groups producing a new dramatic literature1 in which it does not always happen that poor people are boobs1 while ladies and gentlemen are refined and gracious4 ,more significant yet1 the descendants of those ,jack ,cade rebels1 whom ,shakespeare represents as objecting to grammar schools1 have by a century-long struggle forced the establishment of free schools for the children of the people in every corner of ,england4 ,they have some three thousand branches of the ,workers' ,education ,association1 in which the people learn about nouns and verbs at their own expense4 ,was ever a national poet more sternly rebuked by the people of his own nation8 ,says ,mrs4 ,ogi3 8,it is time for ,jack ,cade to make it felony to read ,shakespeare40 8,no10 says ,ogi2 8we have to follow the example of the ,catholic ,church1 whose priests are allowed to read prohibited books for purposes of controversy4 ,but certainly it is time for us to get clear in our minds that ,shakespeare is a poet and propagandist of the enemy2 for the present1 at any rate1 a burden upon the race mind4 ,he is the crown and glory of the system of class supremacy1 and a magic word used by every snob and every time-server in the place of straight thinking and the reality of life40 ,,chapter ,,xxxvii ,,praise ,,for ,,puritans ,says ,mrs4 ,ogi3 8,from the title of this chapter ,i judge that we here begin our long-anticipated debate with ,h4 ,l4 ,mencken60 8,no10 replies her husband1 8we shall hew to the line of ,john ,milton2 but of course1 if one of the chips happens to hit ,mencken in the eye--0 8,he will let us know10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi4 8,first we have to have some of the despised sociology4 ,we have to mention that human institutions arise1 and serve their day1 and then degenerate4 ,the shell which at one time protects the crab becomes an encumbrance and has to be split and cast off4 ,the ,english monarchy once served to break the power of the rebellious nobles1 and to give the country unity2 but now came ,parliament1 pushing the kings aside4 ,the people who brought about that change were the ,puritans3 and for a century they represented such freedom of conscience and freedom of intellect as ,england had4 ,incidentally1 they settled the ,north ,american continent1 cleared out the savages1 and made a civilization4 ,we owe them more than we owe to any other single group2 and if nowadays we identify ,puritanism with the ,society for the ,prevention of ,vice1 we shall be just as narrow and as bigoted as ,anthony ,comstock himself40 ,says ,mrs4 ,ogi3 8,there goes a chip straight for ,mencken's eye60 ,the society in which ,john ,milton grew up was very much like the ,harding-,coolidge era which we know4 ,there was the same raffish crew in control of government1 selling everything in sight1 and trampling civil rights4 ,men were thrown wholesale into prison1 they were beaten and tortured for their opinions' sake4 ,a small handful stood out1 and suffered martyrdom2 they appealed to the public1 and the public seemed dead and indifferent--exactly as it seems today4 ,john ,milton had a fortunate and happy youth4 ,his father was prosperous1 and gave his son the best guidance and education4 ,at ,christ's ,college they called the boy 8the lady10 because he was beautiful and refined4 ,he returned to his father's home to live a life of quiet study1 and to write poems of imperishable beauty4 ,if 8art for art's sake0 degenerates care to know how poetry can have all the graces and sensuous charms1 and still be clean1 they are referred to these early poems of the young ,english ,puritan4 ,it is worth while to point out explicitly how little his creed meant narrowness and contempt for art4 ,all that came later1 as a result of the civil war4 ,but ,milton in his youth acquired all the culture of his time2 he was a thorough-going humanist1 personally graceful and attractive2 he traveled in ,italy and met the leading men of his age1 including the old blind ,galileo1 who had been forced under threat of torture to recant his belief that the earth moves around the sun4 ,the efforts of the most ,catholic ,king ,charles ,i to break the parliament of ,england brought ,milton home from ,italy4 ,the parliament resisted1 and civil war broke out1 and he put aside his poetry and teaching1 and plunged into the work of saving free government4 ,even today we find leisure-class critics bewailing the fact that a great poet should have wasted himself in a political career4 ,but ,i venture the opinion that ,john ,milton has given us more great poetry than we take time to appreciate2 and it was worth while also to give us a life1 and demonstrate that a poet can be a man4 ,for twenty years ,john ,milton was the world voice of the ,republican cause4 ,in order to defend it he made himself master of the finest ,english prose style known up to that time4 ,he defended his cause also in ,latin1 in ,french1 and in ,italian2 he defended it so well that it now prevails over most of the world1 and so we fail to realize what it seemed in the poet's day4 ,the parliamentary army met the king in battle1 and took him prisoner1 held him for three years1 and then1 because of his infinite and incurable treachery1 tried him and cut off his head4 ,to the orthodox respectability of the seventeenth century this was the most horrible thing that had happened since the crucifixion of ,christ4 ,you know how ,bolsheviks and ,socialists are reputed to practice free love1 and worse yet1 to preach it4 ,john ,milton was that kind of wicked person1 also4 ,he married a giddy young ,royalist wife1 and she left him2 whereupon he wrote two pamphlets in favor of divorce4 ,when he could not get permission to print such diabolical documents1 he printed them without license2 and when he was attacked for this1 he published another pamphlet1 maintaining the unthinkable theory that men should be free to print what they pleased4 ,i have seen1 within a few miles of my own home1 bookstores and printing offices raided1 and their contents smashed and burned1 both by mobs and by officers of the law2 ,i have seen one of my friends fined thirty thousand dollars for publishing a book in favor of the atrocious idea that human beings should not shed one another's blood2 so ,i believe that ,i can understand how this ,puritan poet was regarded by the cultured world of his time4 ,he was a grim fighter4 ,it was the fashion in those days to abuse your opponents1 and ,milton gave as good as he got4 ,people who think that ,upton ,sinclair is too personal in his controversial writing-- 8,won't think it any the less because he compares himself with ,milton60 says ,mrs4 ,ogi4 8,go on with your story40 ,so her husband confines his statement to the fact that ,milton never engaged in a fight except for human liberty4 ,at the crisis of his country's peril he was told he had abused his eyes1 and that if he did not rest them1 he would go blind4 ,he wrote another pamphlet in defense of his cause1 thus deliberately sacrificing his sight in the effort to save the republican government4 ,the sacrifice was in vain1 for ,cromwell died1 and the government went to pieces1 and the raffish rout came back2 8bonnie ,prince ,charlie10 lecherous1 treacherous and vile1 with all his herd of noble plunderers4 ,john ,milton1 foreign secretary out of a job1 went into hiding1 and his books were burned by the public hangman2 later he was arrested and fined--they would have liked to have the hangman deal with him also1 but did not quite dare4 ,however1 he lost most of his property2 and there he was1 old1 blind and helpless--his very daughters caught the spirit of the new time1 and stole his books and sold them to gratify their own desires4 ,that is what happens to men who consecrate their art to a cause2 and somehow they have to rise above such circumstances1 maintain the supremacy of the human spirit1 8and justify the ways of ,god to man40 ,the psychoanalysts have made us familiar with the word 8sublimation40 ,without ever hearing the word1 ,john ,milton proceeded to sublimate his sufferings and his balked hopes into one of the greatest of the world's poems4 ,the first point to get clear about this poem is that it was a piece of propaganda1 pure and simple1 deliberately so made4 ,beauty and culture and charm--these things ,john ,milton had known1 and in his bitter old age he did not forget them2 but the task to which he now set himself was the same task as ,dante's to explain the universe and its divine governance4 ,the epic of ,english ,puritanism has never won its due recognition abroad2 the ,continental critics have given preference to ,byron1 who was also a rebel1 but a man of the world1 a lover1 and a lord4 ,albert ,mordell of course includes 8,paradise ,lost0 among his 8waning classics02 he has an easy time pointing out the absurdities of its theology1 and argues that the interest of the poem is bound up with these4 ,for my part ,i say about it what ,i said about ,dante2 some of its propaganda is out of date1 and some of it will be out of date when men cease to consecrate their lives to ends greater than themselves4 ,it is interesting to note how the spirit of ,milton broke the fetters of his theology4 ,according to that theology ,satan was the father of evil1 and there was no excuse for him2 he had rebelled against a heavenly king who was all-wise and all-good4 ,but ,milton also had rebelled against a king1 and could not forget the feeling2 he poured his own revolt into the speeches of ,satan1 making him the most interesting character in the poem4 ,if you live in ,new ,york or visit there1 you may see in the public library a painting of ,milton as he sat in his home1 dictating 8,paradise ,lost40 ,we have a description from the pen of a visitor2 it was a poor little house1 with only one room to the floor1 and the poet sat in a chair1 in a rusty black suit1 old and blind1 pale and tormented with rheumatism4 ,ten pounds he got for ,england's great epic1 and thirteen hundred copies of it were sold during his lifetime4 ,yet his spirit never wavered1 and he lived to write 8,samson ,agonistes10 a drama in the ,greek style1 neglected by the critics4 ,as a rule there is nothing more futile than imitations of outworn art forms2 but once in a while it happens that a man lives the old life1 and can write in the old manner4 ,milton writes a ,greek drama about a ,jewish strong man--and it turns out to be a picture of the poet's own soul at bay6 ,having praised ,milton highly in this chapter1 ,i recall my opening statement as to the superiority of present-day technique4 ,you will expect me to justify this1 and an interesting opportunity presents itself here4 ,in #afee occurred a massacre of ,swiss ,protestants by ,italian ,catholics under the ,duke of ,savoy4 ,milton1 being then in office as foreign secretary1 wrote a sonnet voicing his indignation4 ,it is rated by critics as one of the greatest of ,english sonnets4 ,for your convenience ,i quote it3 ,,on ,,the ,,late ,,massacre ,,in ,,piedmont ,avenge1 ,o ,lord6 thy slaughter'd ,saints1 whose bones ,lie scatter'd on the ,alpine mountains cold2 ,even them who kept ,thy truth so pure of old ,when all our fathers worshipt stocks and stones4 ,forget not3 ,in ,thy book record their groans ,who were ,thy sheep1 and in their ancient fold ,slain by the bloody ,piedmontese1 that roll'd ,mother with infant down the rocks4 ,their moans ,the vales redoubled to the hills1 and they ,to ,heaven4 ,their martyr'd blood and ashes sow ,o'er all the ,italian field1 where still doth sway ,the triple ,tyrant1 that from these may grow ,a hundred-fold1 who1 having learnt ,thy way1 ,early may fly the ,babylonian woe4 ,francis ,turner ,palgrave1 named by ,tennyson as the best judge of poetry of his time1 says in the notes to his 8,golden ,treasury03 8this #8collect in verse1' as it has been justly called1 is the most mighty ,sonnet in any language known to the ,editor40 ,so you see1 we are setting a high standard4 ,what modern work shall we compare with it8 ,in the year #aiad there occurred in ,colorado1 in the ,rocky ,mountains cold1 the 8,ludlow massacre0 of the wives and children of miners on strike4 ,it caused a demonstration in front of the office of ,john ,d4 ,rockefeller1 ,jr41 at #bf ,broadway1 ,new ,york1 about which you may read in 8,the ,brass ,check40 ,a young poet who happened at that time to be my secretary1 and who has since made a success as a novelist1 was moved by these events to write a sonnet1 which ,i sent to the ,scripps newspapers1 getting for the poet the unprecedented sum of twenty-five dollars4 ,i now quote the sonnet1 and invite you to study the two1 comparing them by all tests of poetry known to you4 ,i give my own opinion3 that in their propaganda impulse these two sonnets are identical2 that in simplicity1 directness1 and fervor of feeling they are as nearly identical as two art works can be2 and that in technical skill the modern work is superior4 ,,to ,a ,,certain ,,rich ,,young ,,ruler ,by ,clement ,wood ,white-fingered lord of murderous events1 ,well are you guarding what your father gained2 ,with torch and rifle you have well maintained ,the lot to which a heavenly providence ,has called you2 laborers risen in defense ,of liberty and life1 lie charred and brained ,about your mines1 whose gutted hills are stained ,with slaughter of these newer innocents4 ,ah1 but your bloody fingers clenched in prayer6 ,your piety1 which all the world has seen6 ,the godly odor spreading through the air ,from your efficient charity machine6 ,thus you rehearse for your high rle up there1 ,ruling beside the lowly ,nazarene6 ,,chapter ,,xxxviii ,,comrade',s ,,progress ,there is another artist of ,english ,puritanism we must not overlook4 ,we shall have no trouble in proving this one a propagandist2 so obviously was he preaching1 that the critics of his own time overlooked him entirely4 ,the elegant men of letters of the ,restoration period1 gossiping in their coffee houses1 dicing in their taverns1 and carrying on their fashionable intrigues1 would have been moved to witty couplets by the notion that an ignorant tinker1 a street-corner tub-thumper locked up in ,bedford gaol1 was engaged in composing one of the immortal classics of ,english literature4 ,as soon might you attempt to tell one of the clever 8colyumnists0 of the ,new ,york newspapers1 stumping his last cigarette in his coffee saucer at luncheon in the ,algonquin1 that an immortal classic of ,american literature was running serially in the 8,appeal to ,reason0 or the 8,daily ,worker40 ,john ,bunyan came from the lowest ranks of the people1 those same louts and clowns whom ,shakespeare delighted to ridicule4 ,and he was quite as ridiculous as ,shakespeare could have wished him2 he saw visions1 and was pursued by devils1 and rushed out onto the street to save the souls of people as ignorant and unimportant as himself4 ,under the laws of ,england the saving of souls was a privilege reserved to the younger sons of the gentry1 who got 8livings0 out of it2 so ,john ,bunyan was persecuted1 precisely as ignorant and unimportant ,i4 ,w4 ,w4 are persecuted in my neighborhood today4 ,and he behaved exactly as the ,i4 ,w4 ,w4 behave2 that is1 he stubbornly declined to change his opinions1 or to cease proclaiming them on the streets4 ,sent to prison1 he did what a number of the ,i4 ,w4 ,w4 did in ,leavenworth2 despite the fact that he had a pregnant wife and four small children1 one of them blind1 he refused to give a purely formal promise to behave himself4 ,this caused extreme embarrassment to humane magistrates1 who didn't want to be hard on a poor crack-brain1 but were sworn to uphold the majesty of the law4 ,so for twelve years ,john ,bunyan stayed in jail and wrote 8,pilgrim's ,progress40 ,now my friend1 ,albert ,mordell1 includes it among his 8waning classics40 ,he says3 8,the story that children delight in the book and read it through is mythical2 many children try to read it but usually drop it40 ,well1 it so happened that when ,i read those words1 ,i had been making a test on a ten-year-old boy1 my own4 ,we used to read it aloud1 sitting in front of the fireplace on winter evenings2 and of all the books we read1 none created such excitement4 ,it was difficult to keep on reading1 because of the stream of questions3 8,what does that mean1 ,papa80 ,you see1 allegories1 which bore us adults1 are fascinating to the child mind4 ,such a wonderful idea1 when you first think of it--to embody moral qualities in living beings1 and give them names1 and send them walking out over the earth1 to engage in adventures and contend with each other6 ,to see the every-day problems of your own conduct unrolled before you in the form of a story6 ,my young friends of the radical intelligentsia1 who used to live in ,greenwich ,village1 but have now moved to ,croton and ,provincetown and ,stelton to get away from the bally-hoo wagons1 have been calling me a ,puritan ever since they knew me2 and now they will smile a patronizing smile1 hearing me endorse this old-fashioned ,sunday school story4 ,i can only record my conviction1 that one does not escape the need of personal morality by espousing proletarian revolution4 ,even after the revolution1 there will be moral struggles fought out in the hearts of men and women4 ,i realize that morality is destined to become a science1 and that by the study of psychology we shall abolish many problems of conduct2 nevertheless1 life will still require effort--there will remain the question of whether to study or not to study1 and why6 ,i suggest to my young radical friends that they amuse an idle hour by applying 8,pilgrim's ,progress0 to the great movement of our day4 ,instead of ,christian1 read ,comrade2 instead of ,christian's burden1 read a soap-box4 ,you can always find some youngster to serve as traveling companion under the name of ,hopeful4 ,and very soon in your journey you will enter the ,valley of ,humiliation2 very soon you will begin to meet ,mr4 ,money-,love and ,mr4 ,pliable2 also ,mr4 ,talkative will come in swarms to your studio parties4 ,and ,by-,ends--he works beside you in every office2 the fellow who takes care of himself and does not believe in going to extremes4 ,and ,mr4 ,worldly-,wiseman--perhaps you have a rich uncle who will serve2 you can see him sitting in the padded leather chairs of any club4 ,and when ,comrade's ,pilgrimage brings him to ,new ,york1 he will see ,vanity ,fair1 flaunting its glories up and down the avenue1 protected by plate glass4 ,and the fiend ,appolyon--we have had two attorney-generals exactly cut for the rle4 ,if you think that a joke1 it means that you have been playing the part of ,mr4 ,facing ,both-ways during the past ten years1 and do not know about the realities of government by gunmen4 ,the forms of things change1 but the inner essence remains the same1 and you must learn to recognize it4 ,the ,slough of ,despond1 for example1 is discovered in the bottom of the coffee-cups in which ,greenwich ,village now gets its bootleg gin4 ,as for the ,giant ,despair--a singular transformation6--he is a pale-colored microscopic organism of cork-screw shape1 lurking in the delicious intrigues of our gay and saucy young folks4 ,as for the ,interpreter's ,house1 it is out of repair just now1 having been hit by ,h-,e shells in #aiag4 ,as for the ,celestial ,city1 which we old fogies used to vision under the name of the ,co-operative ,commonwealth--the young people won't let us mention it any more2 they tell us that propaganda is out of style1 in these days of petting-parties and hip-pocket flasks4 ,,chapter ,,xxxix ,,vanity ,,fair ,we have been keeping low company for so long that the reader may be wondering3 ,were there no writers for ladies and gentlemen in the time of ,milton and ,bunyan8 ,the answer is1 yes2 and we should pay a brief visit to that ,vanity ,fair which ,bunyan saw through the bars of his prison4 ,there was a poet laureate1 who did not go to prison but became the idol of his age1 and the most prosperous writer up to that time4 ,john ,dryden was his name1 and like ,milton1 he was born of a well-to-do ,puritan family1 and received the best education going4 ,he was twenty-seven years old when ,cromwell died1 and he wrote heroic stanzas on the ,lord ,protector4 ,he attached himself to his cousin1 an official of the ,puritan republic1 expecting advancement2 but he did not get it1 so two years later1 when the 8bonnie ,prince ,charlie0 came back to be crowned1 the young poet welcomed him with a panegyric ode1 several pages of ecstatic compliment-- ,how shall ,i speak of that triumphant day ,when you renewed the expiring pomp of ,may8 ,a month that owns an interest in your name1 ,you and the flowers are its peculiar claim4 ,i am following the life of ,dryden by ,professor ,saintsbury1 an eminent scholar of the ,tory way of thought1 who has just immortalized himself by publishing a whole volume devoted to the literature of alcoholic liquor4 ,this professor says everything that can be said in defense of ,dryden1 but the best he can say about this 8,astra ,redux0 is that in order to appreciate its beauties1 you must forget the facts about the 8bonnie ,prince ,charlie0 and his reign4 ,the professor lists a few of the facts you must forget3 8the treaty of ,dover and the closed exchequer1 ,madam ,carwell's twelve thousand a year and ,lord ,russell's scaffold40 ,that is the way to read literature under the guidance of a leisure-class critic6 ,as we used to say when we were children3 8,open your mouth and shut your eyes1 and ,i'll give you something to make you wise60 ,the elegant literature of that time was described by the term 8metaphysical10 which meant that the poet exhausted his imagination in inventing quaint and startling conceits4 ,for example1 one of ,dryden's noble patrons contracted smallpox1 and the poet1 describing his appearance1 records that ,each little dimple had a tear in it1 ,to wail the fault its rising did commit4 ,by such personal attention to the rich and powerful ,john ,dryden became the greatest poet of his century1 and married the daughter of an earl4 ,he took to writing heroic plays in the style of his time1 such preposterous bombast that if ,i were to tell you about them you would think ,i was making them up4 ,then he wrote society comedies1 also in the style of his time1 which was such high-toned sex nastiness that if ,i were to write it today ,i should be taken up by the ,shuberts and the ,laskys1 and paid as much as ,cecil de ,mille and ,robert ,w4 ,chambers and ,elinor ,glyn rolled into one4 ,the 8,restoration comedies0 were much the same thing as our 8bedroom farces10 except that they were long drawn out2 the seventeenth century audience was satisfied to listen to smart people gossiping about their vices1 while our audience wants to see the smart people climbing through the transom in their pajamas4 ,also1 the old comedies are difficult for us to understand1 because the language of polite obscenity changes from age to age1 and we don't always know what ,dryden and ,congreve and ,wycherley are talking about4 ,but we need not rack our brains2 we may be sure that all their witticisms have reference to fornication and adultery4 ,there was no other occupation for these 8restored0 ladies and gentlemen--except gambling and eating and drinking1 and cheating and lying in order to get the money to pay for their elegant pleasures4 ,dryden gained by this writing an income of a couple of thousand pounds a year1 which was the top-notch for a literary fellow in ,england4 ,also he became poet laureate1 and an intimate of the king2 in short1 he reached the heights4 ,but alas1 greatness has its penalties1 as the poet soon discovered1 caught in the poisonous intrigues of a vile court4 ,he was accused of having written a slanderous poem1 and one of his noble enemies hired some bullies to beat him up one night4 ,also1 a muck-raking parson by the name of ,jeremy ,collier came along and lashed him in a book entitled 8,a ,short ,view of the ,profaneness and ,immorality of the ,english ,stage40 ,to all his other literary and political enemies the poet showed himself a voluble antagonist2 but to the ,reverend ,jeremy he had nothing to answer4 ,he began1 apparently1 to realize the seriousness of life1 and took to writing propaganda for his gang4 ,he produced a series of political tracts1 satirical and didactic verses upon which he expended great technical skill4 ,professor ,saintsbury points out these literary beauties2 but again he specifies3 in appreciating them1 the reader has to bear in mind that what ,dryden proved today he may have disproved yesterday1 and he may prove something different tomorrow4 ,lacking this acrobatic ability1 ,i can only record my opinion1 that these most famous verses are snarling and odious quarrels1 of exactly as much importance to mankind as the yelps in a dog-fight4 ,one of them was a poem full of enraptured praise for the ,anglican church4 ,the poet at this time was listed for a salary of a hundred pounds a year as poet laureate2 but the salary was badly in arrears1 and somebody must have pointed out to him that his new sovereign1 ,king ,james ,,ii1 was an ardent ,catholic4 ,so the poet became converted to ,catholicism1 and wrote an equally enraptured poem in praise of that4 ,but1 alas6 it was a bad guess2 shortly afterwards ,his ,most ,catholic ,majesty was kicked out of ,england1 and ,william of ,orange was brought over1 and the country was ,protestant again4 ,this was the period when the ,vicar of ,bray had such a hard time holding his job2 and our court poet also suffered1 losing most of his perquisites1 and having to go to work again4 ,he was an old man now1 and decided to play safe2 he made a verse translation of ,virgil1 for which nobody could scold him4 ,nobody did1 and he died full of honors1 and had a 8sufficiently splendid funeral0 in ,westminster ,abbey1 8with a great procession1 preceded at the ,college by a ,latin oration1 and by the singing of ,exegi ,monumentum to music40 ,and so1 if you like that sort of thing1 there you have what you like2 and if you have ,dryden's talents1 and are willing to sell them to the ruling classes1 ,i can drive you over to ,hollywood any day1 and introduce you to the fellows who will start you off at twenty thousand a year1 and raise you to two hundred thousand as soon as you have begun to deliver the goods4 ,,chapter ,,xl ,,glory ,,propaganda ,in order to make a consecutive story we have followed the development of ,english art for a century and a half4 ,we now go back to cover the same period on the ,continent1 where a new ruling class has acquired wealth and power and has ordered a supply of new artists4 ,the difference between ,france and ,england during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries may be summed up briefly4 ,the ,english revolt against the ,catholic machine was successful1 therefore the spirit of the ,english race expanded1 and new art forms were created4 ,in ,france1 on the other hand1 the ,catholic machine succeeded in crushing the ,protestants2 something over fifty thousand were slaughtered on ,st4 ,bartholomew's ,eve2 and therefore the art of ,france was held within the mold of the classical tradition4 ,the ,elizabethan drama grew out of the old miracle and mystery plays1 a native product1 crude1 but popular and democratic4 ,there existed such a native drama also in ,france2 but it was scorned and repressed by authority1 and cultured art followed the tragedies of ,seneca1 a ,roman millionaire of the time of ,nero1 who had of course derived from the ,greeks4 ,it may seem strange that ,catholic absolutism should have made ,greek and ,latin art forms a part of its sacred dogma2 but so it was4 ,the doctors of the church in the ,middle ,ages had put together a theology1 in part from the early ,christian fathers1 and in part from ,athenian and ,alexandrian philosophers4 ,it was for denying ,ptolemy's doctrine that the sun moved round the earth that ,galileo was forced to recant under threat of torture by the pope2 and it was for denying the sacred 8three unities10 derived from ,aristotle's 8,poetics10 that playwrights were critically tortured by the priests of orthodox culture4 ,these three dogmas of play-writing were unity of theme1 unity of time1 and unity of place4 ,the first is1 within reasonable limits1 a natural requirement of any work of art2 but unity of time1 meaning that the play must happen within twenty-four hours1 and unity of place1 meaning that it must happen on one physical spot1 are absurdities4 ,it is hard for us to realize that such rules were compulsory upon any dramatist who wished to see his work upon the stage2 it is harder yet for us to realize that such rules were used as weapons in the class struggle1 along with the infallibility of the pope and the divine right of kings4 ,there arose in ,france a prelate of the grim and bloody kind1 who became the king's minister1 and directed the slaughtering of the ,huguenots1 and chopped off the heads of the rebellious nobles2 he even forced the church to submit itself1 and made his king the absolute ruler of ,france1 so that a year after ,richelieu's death it was possible for the king's son to ascend the throne1 and to say1 8,i am the ,state10 and have no one dispute him through his reign of seventy-two years4 ,one of the engines of repression that ,richelieu devised was the ,french ,academy1 to take charge of the language and art of the monarchy1 and impose law and order by chopping off the literary heads of all rebels4 ,this ,academy became the ruling authority in cultured ,france1 and has filled that rle for three hundred years4 ,not merely has it served the ruling classes by maintaining tradition and discrediting every innovation in ,french letters2 it has issued formal pronouncements against unorthodox social and political books--for example1 ,rousseau's 8,social ,contract40 ,a list of the ,french men of letters who have been excluded from the 8immortals0 includes ,descartes1 ,pascal1 ,molire1 ,saint-,simon1 ,le,sage1 ,rousseau1 ,beaumarchais1 ,diderot1 ,compte1 ,proudhon1 ,stendhal1 ,balzac1 ,flaubert1 ,zola1 ,goncourt1 ,maupassant1 ,jaurs1 ,barbusse1 ,rolland4 ,the polite literature which reigned in ,richelieu's time was known as 8prcieuse10 and occupied itself in the making up of elaborate long similes1 extending sometimes through several pages4 ,it was foppish and fantastic to the point of imbecility2 and the makers of it were the darlings of ,richelieu's ,academy4 ,there came up from the provinces a young lawyer by the name of ,pierre ,corneille1 who began to write successful comedies1 and received the high honor of being picked by ,richelieu as one of five men to write dramas under his august direction4 ,but ,corneille1 a man of genius1 could not long submit himself to the head-chopping cardinal4 ,he went his own way1 and incurred the raging enmity of both ,richelieu and his ,academy4 ,he wrote a tragedy in ,alexandrine verse called 8,the ,cid10 which was an enormous popular success4 ,this ,cid was a legendary hero of ,spain1 a 8free captain0--that is1 the head of an army of hired mercenaries1 who went about fighting for anybody who would pay him4 ,we are used to this system of 8free captains0 in the ,united ,states1 where they are called private detective bureaus and strike-breaking agencies4 ,they have armies of tens of thousands of fighting men1 horse1 foot and artillery1 whom they move about from place to place for the crushing of union labor4 ,so before long we shall see on ,broadway or in ,hollywood some young writer making a tremendous ruling-class drama out of the legendary career of ,alan ,pinkerton or ,william ,j4 ,burns4 ,the great detective will be shown in love with the beautiful daughter of some labor leader1 the tragedy coming when in the course of his duty the great detective has to kill the labor leader4 ,that is the story which ,corneille developed--except that of course1 it was a rival prince whom the ,cid was fighting4 ,needless to say1 in order not to have his head chopped off by ,richelieu1 the playwright put his hero in the position of defending legitimacy4 ,but the poet had failed to respect the 8three unities0 in his tragedy2 so1 although acclaimed by audiences1 he was viciously attacked by the academicians--one of them even challenged him to a duel6 ,the ,academy as a body was afraid to attack the play1 but ,richelieu forced it to take action4 ,corneille was not strong enough to withstand opposition such as this2 in his future work he conformed to the rules1 and became a humble pensioner of the cardinal4 ,it is interesting to note that his genius began quickly to decline1 and he had the humiliation of living to old age and seeing himself scorned and neglected by the new generation4 ,thus ,richelieu's ,academy fulfilled at the outset its function1 destroying the greatest tragic dramatist that ,france had produced1 and suppressing for two hundred years the romantic movement in the ,french theater4 ,it is important to get clear the difference between the real classical art of the ,greeks1 and this imitation classical art of ,french absolutism4 ,the ,greek stage rules had been made to fit the facts of the ,greek stage4 ,their tragedies had been enacted in a large open-air theater1 and to keep the actors from looking too small they had worn high shoes1 almost stilts1 and had shouted to the audience through a megaphone disguised as a mask4 ,needless to say1 they could not move quickly1 and could not do anything but talk4 ,their tendency was to talk at great length--like mighty ships1 which1 having got under way1 were not easily to be stopped4 ,but in the time of ,corneille and his successors all that was gone2 plays were acted in small1 indoor theaters1 and the characters might have been human and real4 ,but the critical authorities ordained that the ,greek conventions were sacred2 so the characters of ,corneille are stiff and stately1 and stalk about hurling long1 impassioned tirades at one another4 ,nevertheless1 two thousand years have not failed to make an impression upon the minds of men4 ,the dark1 overshadowing fate of the ,greeks is gone1 its place as director of events being taken by human ambition4 ,corneille's characters are embodiments of this or that passion4 ,they are1 of course1 always aristocrats1 the mighty and powerful of the earth2 they are intended to be morally sublime1 but to us they seem monsters of egotism4 ,they want what they want when they want it1 they smite their breasts and exclaim3 8,moi6 ,moi6 ,moi60 ,there is war1 splendid war1 in which they gain the admiration and attention known as 8glory40 ,the tragedy comes because they cannot get all they want2 they have weaknesses1 especially love1 which get in the way1 and paralyze the will of mighty princes engaged in prevailing over each other4 ,at this time the ,thirty ,years' ,war was devastating ,europe4 ,it had begun as a religious war1 an effort of ,catholic ,austria to crush ,german ,protestantism2 but it had now degenerated into a clash of rival dynasties1 with ,richelieu1 master intriguer1 using the ,protestants to put down the enemies of the ,french monarchy4 ,the mother of the ,french king had been an ,austrian princess1 ,catherine de' ,medici1 and she was intriguing against her son's country4 ,she had been driven into exile by ,richelieu1 and was raising up armies against him2 so1 all over ,europe1 the people were being led out to slaughter at the whim of this vicious old woman4 ,they were led out for one greedy prince or another2 they were led out because the mistress of some king had been snubbed by the wife of some emperor2 they were led out for an endless tangle of royal jealousies and noble spites4 ,and the function of the dramas of ,corneille is to take us into the souls of these lawless aristocrats2 all the powers of genius1 all the resources of the stage are expended in order that we may share their furies1 may strut the stage with them and deliver tumultuous tirades4 ,for a time or two the experience is interesting2 but then the novelty wears off1 and we ask ourselves3 ,do ,i really care anything about these heroes8 ,do ,i want to share their feelings--or do ,i want to change the world1 so that there may be no corner where such dangerous and destructive creatures can lurk8 ,and so ends the glory propaganda of ,corneille4 ,,chapter ,,xli ,,unbridled ,,desires ,louis ,,xiv1 the 8grand monarch10 ascended the throne of ,france in the year #afdc1 while ,cromwell's 8,ironsides0 were fighting their king1 and only six years before they cut off his head4 ,a greater difference between two kingdoms could scarcely be imagined2 and this difference is completely reflected in ,french and ,english art4 ,all the life of ,france was centered at the court4 ,the monarch who was 8the ,state0 withdrew himself from ,paris1 and built a magnificent play-ground at ,versailles2 aqueducts were constructed1 a barren waste was turned into a pleasure-park1 whole forests of trees being moved and replanted4 ,great palaces arose2 the architects and landscape gardeners1 the sculptors and painters poured out their treasures1 to make this most wonderful garden of delight4 ,all over the land was a ruined peasantry2 misery1 starvation and ignorance1 freedom crushed1 justice flaunted1 superstition and despotism enthroned4 ,a nation was taxed bare to make the beauty and glory and luxury of this court4 ,you might see the 8grand monarch10 with a huge powdered periwig on top of his head1 in a costume of crimson and white brocaded with gold1 advancing with solemn steps upon red-heeled shoes1 and wielding a golden snuff-box covered with jewels4 ,about him flock the courtiers1 great nobles and ecclesiastics1 now deprived both of their powers and their duties1 and with nothing to do but dance attendance at court4 ,here also are the swarms of fine ladies1 trained in the arts of seduction4 ,in the morning the court rides forth in enormous hunting parties1 pursuing stags imported from all over ,europe4 ,they spend the afternoons and evenings in feasting1 gaming1 gossiping1 intriguing4 ,and here1 of course1 come the artists2 poets and painters1 dramatists and musicians1 dancing masters and jugglers and makers of ballets and masques4 ,the king who said1 8,i am the ,state10 might equally have said1 8,i am ,art40 ,he and his court constituted audience and critics2 either you pleased them1 or as an artist you were dead4 ,it is interesting to note that the famous artists of that time all came from the middle classes4 ,the great gentlemen scorned to work at art1 as at anything else2 they paid others to work for them4 ,they were exacting paymasters1 having high standards of perfection in technique1 and the middle-class ,ogis slaved diligently to polish and refine and beautify their productions4 ,war was far off from this splendid court1 an echo of trouble in another world2 so the sternness and sublimity of ,corneille went out of fashion4 ,love was no longer a temptation and a weakness1 but the delight and glory of the 8great world40 ,the source of human impulse was located in what the poets of those days called 8the heart0--though we1 by surgical investigations1 have ascertained that it is located below the diaphragm4 ,there came a new dramatist to thrill this amorous company4 ,his name was ,jean ,racine1 and he also came from the middle classes4 ,his genius brought him instant success2 he wrote an ode to the king1 was awarded a pension of six hundred livres1 and became an assiduous and successful courtier4 ,he is1 like ,raphael1 the perfect type of the ruling-class artist2 fitting exactly to his age1 with no ideals below it and none above it4 ,his works represent perfection of technique1 the ideal harmony of content and form1 the ,art of ,beauty as it had not been seen upon the stage since the time of ,sophocles4 ,until late in ,racine's life religion is purely formal in his work2 his plays deal with the princely world4 ,society is fixed1 and its forms ordained2 nobody is rising and displacing anybody else1 hence there can be no social drama4 ,you play your part 8in that state of life to which it has pleased ,god to call you02 and tragedy happens when somebody takes away from you the sexual gratification you crave4 ,everything has become personal2 we are concerned with the jealousies1 the fears1 the loves and hates of aristocratic individuals4 ,the heroes and heroines abandon themselves to their passions1 they pour out floods of exquisite emotion4 ,the scene is laid in 8an apartment in a palace10 and murder1 suicide1 insanity and despair lurk just outside the door4 ,they do not come upon the stage1 because the classical tradition ordains that violent actions happen off the stage1 and people rush on and tell us about them4 ,we get the echoes of horror in the eyes and the voices of these people4 ,it is curious to compare ,racine's tragedies with those of ,shakespeare1 which jump you about among a score or two of places all over the earth1 and bring on swarms of characters from every social class4 ,in ,racine1 not merely are the lower classes excluded from the stage1 the lower classes are excluded from existence4 ,three or four noble ladies and gentlemen stand in a room1 and come and go1 and make speeches to one another in marvelously polished rhymed couplets4 ,they address long soliloquies to the air1 they address imaginary beings1 the heavenly powers of ,christian mythology and ,roman and ,greek and ,turkish and ,celtic mythology2 they call earth and sea and sky to witness the infinite wickedness and cruelty of their not being able to have what they want4 ,this is the height and perfection of art1 according to the most fastidious and exacting of ,french standards4 ,and is it propaganda8 ,i do not see how anyone capable of putting two thoughts together can question the fact4 ,here are the gods of a new hierarchy1 princes and potentates1 absorbing to themselves by divine right all the treasures of civilization4 ,here they are exhibited in all their splendor1 one of the world's greatest poets devoting his technical skill to glorifying and exalting them4 ,storms of thrilling emotion are poured forth1 and the crowds go mad with excitement4 ,so ideals are created and standards set1 which govern1 not merely the art life1 but the social and political and business life of the whole of society4 ,the poet himself lived this life of elegant egotistical passion2 he was jealous and quarrelsome1 and he followed the custom of the painters in using his mistresses as models for his female types4 ,one of his tragedies became the cause of a ferocious court quarrel2 a duchess hired another playwright and produced a rival play on the same theme1 and hired a claque to applaud his play1 and to hiss ,racine's4 ,this apparently frightened the poet2 he lost his joy in the courtier life1 became sick1 and in orthodox ,catholic fashion retired into mysticism1 and wrote a play of religion1 as unwholesome and remote from reality as his worldly plays4 ,the most famous of his tragedies is 8,phedre10 which tells about the wife of an ,athenian king1 who conceives an adulterous passion for her step-son1 and when the youth repels her advances1 accuses him falsely to his father1 and brings about his death2 after which1 in a transport of shame1 she poisons herself4 ,for two centuries and a half this portrayal of unbridled desire has been the test of genius upon the ,french stage2 eight generations of actresses have exhausted their skill in portraying it to eight generations of elegant ladies and gentlemen1 living lives of the same unbridled desire4 ,in our time the great ,phedre was ,sarah ,bernhardt1 the 8divine ,sarah10 as she was known to the leisure-class critics of my boyhood4 ,upon the stage she exhibited the unbridled desires of an ancient ,greek queen1 and in real life she exhibited the unbridled desires of a modern stage queen2 a woman who never felt a social emotion1 but squandered the treasure of various royal and plutocratic and literary lovers1 who likewise had never felt a social emotion4 ,we are privileged now to read the extremely stupid love-letters which ,king ,edward of ,england wrote to her1 and learn what sums of money be paid to her1 and what dignified court gentlemen he sent to make his assignations with her4 ,we read also about her passion for ,sardou1 leisure-class playwright of her time1 who created a host of splendid prostitutes and lustful queens1 to enable this leisure-class divinity to sweep her audiences into ecstasy4 ,we today1 possessing means of exploring the subconscious mind1 understand these unbridled desires as symptoms of infantilism4 ,here are babies1 still reaching out for the moon1 and shrieking because they cannot have it2 here are spoiled children1 flattered by servants and fawned upon by slaves1 indulged and petted1 never adjusting themselves to the realities of life1 but growing up to make heroes and heroines of tragedy4 ,we no longer consider these creations sublime2 we call them psychopaths1 and the art which portrays them we call a bore4 ,as economists we have explored the social causes of such raging egotisms1 and also the social consequences4 ,the plutocracy is not the only class which has unbridled desires2 the proletariat has its share1 and if one class is permitted to gratify them1 and to flaunt them before the world1 the only possible consequence is a revolution of blind and bloody revenge4 ,queen ,phedre1 frenzied and horror-smitten1 saw hell looming hideous before her staring eyes2 but she saw no hell compared with what ,racine's audience might have seen1 had they been able to look forward a hundred years in ,french history1 and to watch the starved and brutalized mob of ,paris dancing the 8,carmagnole0 in the streets1 while the guillotine rolled into its bloody basket the heads of the great-grandsons and great-granddaughters of those splendid1 unbridled ladies and gentlemen who made up the 8grand monarch's0 splendid1 unbridled court4 ,,chapter ,,xlii ,,the ,,harpooner ,,of ,,hypocrisy ,in vain do kings and emperors set up the doctrine that art exists for courts2 that only the great ones of the earth are the proper theme for art works1 and courtiers and court critics the true judges of taste4 ,deeply planted in the human heart is an instinct1 declaring that all human beings are of consequence2 and men of genius arise who follow that instinct1 and write about ordinary people1 and appeal to wider and wider groups of the community4 ,we shall now see this happening to the exclusive and haughty court of the 8grand monarch40 ,a world genius appears1 who breaks the established barriers1 sets all ,france to arguing over his ideas1 and helps to make the drama of ,europe the social force which it is today4 ,he was the son of the royal upholsterer in ,paris2 that is to say1 of a tradesman who had the job of repairing the soft and expensive cushions upon which this court reclined4 ,but ,molire1 a volcano of energy and enterprise1 did not take long to discover that he was not interested in cushioning a court4 ,at the age of twenty-one he sold his claims to the family job1 and started a theater on a tennis-court in ,paris4 ,it was a failure1 and the young ,molire was three times imprisoned for debt4 ,but he would not give up2 he organized a company to tour the provinces1 and for thirteen years he lived a life of 8one-night stands40 ,it is a dog's life today1 and must have been worse three hundred years ago1 when actors were outcasts and almost outlaws4 ,catholic bigotry in ,france was as bitter against them as ,puritan bigotry in ,england4 ,it was a hard school1 in which ,molire made no money and lost his health4 ,but it was a way to make a tragi-comic dramatist1 for it brought him into contact with every kind of human being4 ,when he came to ,versailles to become the king's favorite dramatist1 he brought with him knowledge of something more than courtly intrigue2 he brought the fighting spirit of a man who had been roughly handled1 who had been poor and in jail1 and who knew ,france as it was to the plain people4 ,molire got a chance to produce plays before the king1 including a couple of his own little farces4 ,the king was then twenty-one years of age1 curious about life1 and not entirely in the hands of women and priests as he later became4 ,molire was thirty-seven when he produced his first significant work1 8,les ,prcieuses ,ridicules10 a satire on the literary fashions of the time1 according to which a mirror was called 8the counsellor of the graces10 and a chair 8the commodity of conversation40 ,great ladies were accustomed to assemble to display their wit to one another1 and it was exactly like the literary tea-parties we have nowadays4 ,i have pictured them in a chapter in 8,the ,metropolis0-- 8,go ahead with ,molire60 says ,mrs4 ,ogi4 8,i just want to quote a dozen lines10 pleads her husband4 8,this shows you what happens to literature1 when it becomes #8the rage' among fine ladies3 #8,we learn thereby1 every day1 the latest gallantries1 and the prettiest novelties in prose and verse2 we are told just in the nick of time1 that such a one has composed the prettiest piece in the world on such a subject2 that some one else has written words to such an air2 that this person has made a madrigal upon an enjoyment1 and that his friend has composed some stanzas upon an infidelity2 that ,mr4 ,so-and-so sent half a dozen verses yesterday evening to ,miss ,such-and-such1 and that she sent back an answer at eight o'clock this morning2 that one celebrated author has just sketched a plan for a new book1 that another has got to the third part of his romance1 and that a third is passing his works through the press4'0 8,is that in #8,the ,metropolis'80 asks ,mrs4 ,ogi1 suspiciously4 ,whereat1 her husband grins with malice4 8,look for it2 and if you don't find it1 try the tenth scene of #8,les ,prcieuses ,ridicules4'0 ,it was insolence for a mere tradesman's son to make fun of high-born ladies1 and the ladies were furious1 and succeeded in keeping the play off the stage for five days4 ,that was the beginning of a fight1 which lasted the rest of ,molire's life4 ,at any time he chose to write a silly farce or a ballet he could have it produced safely and with applause2 but whenever he wrote a play with a serious purpose he raised up a swarm of enemies1 who kept his play off the boards anywhere from five days to five years4 ,and here is where the man showed his spirit2 he was sick1 he was always struggling with debt1 he had his theatrical company to look out for--people whom he loved and whose burdens he carried4 ,nevertheless1 truth blazed in him like a white-hot flame1 and he could not let his enemies alone4 ,he would quit the fight for a year or two1 then come back to it with a piece of ridicule yet more stinging1 or a picture of cruelty and falsehood so grim that it was hard to pass off for a comedy4 ,molire hated hypocrisy with a deadly hatred2 he hated the church of his time1 because it was an organized system of hypocrisy for cash4 ,he hated vain fops1 and empty-headed1 pretentious women1 and the snobbish and self-seeking great ones of the earth4 ,also he hated the enslaving and imprisoning of love4 ,in his time the ,french girl was raised in a convent1 and when she was somewhere between thirteen and eighteen her parents1 with the aid of the family lawyer1 sold her in marriage to some mature man of the world1 who possessed rank and fortune1 and was apt to possess vices and diseases4 ,in no less than nine of ,molire's plays there is such a situation2 also there is an amiable young man in love with the girl1 and the couple find a way to thwart the schemes of their elders4 ,the plays thus become a plea for common sense and human feeling1 as opposed to avarice and worldly pride4 ,this has become a familiar theme of comedy2 the poet's first instinctive revolt against the money-power4 ,it is ,molire's custom to take some propaganda theme1 and to construct upon it a sermon in picture form4 ,he chooses very simple characters to illustrate the theme1 and in the conversations he pounds upon it like a man driving in a spike with a sledge4 ,every bit of knowledge and skill he possesses goes into those hard strokes2 all his wit and verve1 his insight into human character1 his amazing vividness1 his palpitating sense of life4 ,the greatest evil of the time was unquestionably the church1 which controlled the mind and conscience of the nation and repressed all independent thinking4 ,the life of ,france was beset by a horde of spies1 the secret agents of a predatory power1 the ,jesuits2 nothing could be hid from them1 because they controlled the salvation of souls1 and through the instrument of the confessional were able to dominate political and social life4 ,they worked1 as always1 upon the ignorance and emotionalism of women2 they beset the mind of the king1 and in the end they got him1 forcing the revocation of the law tolerating ,protestants1 and beginning another monstrous persecution4 ,molire saw all that going on around him1 and he wrote about it one of the most terrible plays in the world4 ,it is called 8,tartuffe1 or ,the ,hypocrite10 and shows a religious intriguer1 worming his way into a middle-class family and seducing the wife of his benefactor4 ,the drama is an utterance of blazing anger1 a veritable harpooning of hypocrisy4 ,as a weapon of propaganda it is exactly as powerful today as it was three hundred years ago4 ,of course it raised a storm in the little world of ,paris and ,versailles4 ,the clerical party besieged the king1 and the play was barred from public performance1 though it was shown privately to some of the great nobles4 ,the archbishop threatened to excommunicate those who even read the play1 and ,bossuet1 the ruling-class literary pope of the time1 took ,molire's untimely death from tuberculosis as a divine judgment upon him for the writing of this infamous work4 ,two years later the king again permitted the play to be shown2 but when the performance came on he was away at one of his wars1 and an official closed the theater1 and ,molire's appeals to the king were in vain4 ,for five years the fight over this play went on1 before at last it could be freely shown4 ,they were years of incessant struggle for ,molire4 ,he produced 8,don ,juan10 and the clerical critics objected to that also1 because it portrayed an intellectual and free thinker4 ,to be sure1 it portrayed him as a very immoral man2 but that did not satisfy the clerical party1 for few of them could meet that test4 ,it was the irony of fate that the archbishop1 who forbade to ,molire's body a church service1 was himself a man of notoriously vile habits4 ,then came a play called 8,the ,misanthrope10 a name doubtless given as a sop to ,molire's critics4 ,there is really nothing misanthropic about the hero2 he is simply a man of fine ideals1 who is stunned by his discovery of the powers of evil in the world about him1 and their ability to destroy human life4 ,he is married to a woman whom he loves1 but who will not give up this evil world1 and gives up her husband instead4 ,molire himself had made a bitterly unhappy marriage with a young actress who preferred the world to her husband1 and the hero of this play is generally taken as ,molire's own voice1 just as ,hamlet is taken as ,shakespeare's voice4 ,this greatest comic dramatist of ,france had to waste much of his time producing farces and ballets for his exacting king4 ,he now wrote a farce comedy1 which ,i suppose is produced a thousand times every year in ,american high schools1 8,the ,bourgeois ,gentleman40 ,the play makes merry with a crude1 newly-rich merchant who tries to acquire a little culture in his prosperous years4 ,molire was thus catering to high-born snobbery1 and also voicing the dislike which all artists feel for those who buy and sell4 ,you will recall the scorn of ,aristophanes for 8mongers0 of all sorts--8mutton-mongers0 and 8rope-mongers0 and 8leather-mongers0 and 8offal-mongers40 ,in another play1 8,the ,learned ,ladies10 ,molire joins ,aristophanes in poking fun at the idea that women should or could be educated4 ,it is true that the vanities of women are especially absurd when applied to scientific matters1 in which personality is so entirely out of place2 but the same absurdities result from the first efforts of any disinherited group or class or race to lift itself4 ,we have seen ,shakespeare making fun of workingmen trying to produce a play2 similarly1 we shall find ,kipling ridiculing the notion that ,hindoos can master the ,english language1 and become fit to hold government positions in their own country4 ,molire's last whack was at the doctors1 whom he especially disliked4 ,we can understand that a man afflicted with a chronic disease1 concerning which the doctors of his time understood nothing1 must have had unsatisfactory results from their visits1 must have submitted to their purgings and their bleedings to no purpose1 and paid them money which he felt they did not earn4 ,anyhow1 he goes after them again and again1 and in his 8,imaginary ,invalid0 he portrays a man who thinks he is sick1 and all the various quacks who swarm around him4 ,three times the play was given with great success1 with ,molire acting the leading part4 ,a fourth performance was due1 and the poor playwright was ill2 he thought of his company and what would happen to them if he were to shut down1 so he went through the performance1 and collapsed and died a few hours later4 ,but his vivid and courageous propaganda did not die4 ,it lives1 even to our time1 as the greatest glory of the ,french drama2 proving over and over again our thesis that really great art has never been produced except by men who wished to improve their fellow-men and to abolish cruelty and greed and falsehood from the earth4 ,,chapter ,,xliii ,,crasez ,l',,infame ,in his later years the 8grand monarch0 fell under the spell of a priest-ridden woman1 made her his queen1 and turned over his court to ,jesuit intrigue4 ,the law tolerating ,protestants was repealed1 the best schools in ,france were closed1 and half a million of the most intelligent people were driven from the country4 ,at the same time wars of conquest were undertaken1 and a series of military disasters befell4 ,the king's reign closed in darkness and despair1 and the crowds of ,paris mocked his funeral pageant4 ,but the people's wrath had to fester for seventy years longer before it broke the tyranny of this 8ancient regime40 ,two years after the 8grand monarch's0 death1 the regent sent to the ,bastille a young ,french poet and man of fashion1 the son of a wealthy lawyer of ,paris4 ,this youth1 known to us as ,voltaire1 was accused of having written a pamphlet ridiculing absolutist ideas2 the charge happened to be false1 but needless to say1 a year spent in prison without redress did not increase the young man's love for absolutism4 ,he was one of the wittiest mortals ever born on earth1 and blessed1 or cursed1 with an incessantly active mind4 ,his jailers were comparatively civilized--,i mean1 compared with jailers of capitalist absolutism in ,america2 they permitted the young man to write poetry and dramas1 and when he came out he continued the gay and dissolute life of a literary fop of that period4 ,he was welcomed in the salons of the great1 and his long epic poems and his rhymed verse tragedies were produced with great success4 ,but in his pride as a man of letters ,voltaire forgot his place in the great world of ,france2 he presumed to resent an insult from a noble gentleman1 whereupon this gentleman brought his lackeys1 armed with sticks1 and had the poet cruelly beaten1 while the noble gentleman sat in his sedan-chair1 jeering and directing the punishment4 ,to the amazement of the ,french aristocracy1 the victim failed to accept this as a proper form of discipline2 he1 a mere lawyer's son1 proceeded to train himself to fight a duel with the nobleman--whereupon his great friends turned their backs on him1 and he was again thrown into the ,bastille1 and got out only upon promise to leave ,france4 ,he went to ,england1 where he lived for three years4 ,it was a new ,england1 based upon the revolution which had driven out the ,stuarts2 a ,protestant ,england1 prosperous1 busy1 and from the point of view of a ,french refugee1 amazingly free2 an ,england in which ,pope was preaching common sense1 and ,swift was lashing hypocrisy1 and ,newton was discovering the laws of the universe4 ,when ,voltaire returned to ,france1 it was no longer to be a society fop and darling of the aristocracy2 it was to be an intellectual pioneer1 undermining the wall which ,french absolutism had built about the country4 ,voltaire wrote a book dealing with the things he had learned in ,england1 all the ideas of the new science and the new philosophy and the new toleration4 ,refused permission to publish it1 he had it published secretly1 whereupon it was solemnly banned by authority1 and a copy was burned by the hangman4 ,this made the fortune of the book2 it had a big circulation1 and all intellectual ,france fell to arguing about it4 ,and that was to be ,voltaire's life for some forty-five years thereafter2 writing forbidden books and pamphlets under an infinity of pen names1 having them secretly printed in ,england1 or in ,holland1 or in ,switzerland1 having them publicly burned1 and no less publicly debated4 ,the name ,voltaire thus means to us a champion of free thought1 against religious superstition2 but we must get clear the fact that during his life ,voltaire was the most eminent poet and dramatist of ,france4 ,also it is interesting to note that1 revolutionary as he was in the field of philosophy1 he was a complete conservative in the field of art2 following the models of ,corneille and ,racine1 and respecting the sacred unities1 the artificial laws whereby the ,french stage was fettered4 ,among the discoveries he had made in ,england was a playwright by the name of ,shakespeare1 whom he described as 8a drunken savage1 without the smallest scrap of good taste1 and without the least acquaintance with the rules40 ,voltaire was much annoyed when this dictum had the effect of causing some ,frenchmen to be curious about ,shakespeare6 ,as time passed1 he found that he had to give more and more energy to denouncing this 8drunken savage10 and rebuking those who professed to find merit in his work4 ,all of which has a vital lesson for us2 it shows us how tight is the grip of culture conventions upon the educated mind4 ,it is possible for men to think for themselves concerning ,god and immortality1 concerning the divine right of emperors and kings1 and even of oil magnates and international financiers4 ,but it is extremely difficult for them to think freely on the subject of what constitutes good taste1 and whether or not they ought to permit themselves to enjoy a new and strange work of art4 ,i note with interest that our own young intellectuals1 who count themselves thorough-going revolters1 who boast of unorthodoxy in religion1 politics1 economics1 and morals1 are usually of ,tory inclination in matters of culture2 cherishing the aristocratic superstition that art exists for cultured classes1 and that whatever is popular is obviously contemptible4 ,we in ,america do not make any fuss about poets1 so it is hard for us to understand the power which ,voltaire wielded over ,french society4 ,he was cynical1 he was obscene1 he was jealous and vain and exasperating2 but he was a kind of god1 to whom critical authority bowed1 even monarchs with their worldly power4 ,he produced a score of dramas1 most of them tragedies in the heroic style1 and with few exceptions each was a separate ovation1 a coronation in the kingdom of letters4 ,it never occurred to anyone in ,voltaire's time that he was not the equal of ,racine1 as a dramatist2 while his epics were put above ,homer and ,virgil4 ,we today begin one of his plays with determination to go through to the end1 but we cannot make it2 we desire some ,greenwich ,village wit to produce it in mock heroic style1 so that we can laugh heartily at these pompous aristocrats raging and storming1 stabbing and killing each other4 ,we laugh1 because it is so apparent that the poet himself has never felt any of this emotion1 he has thought only how magnificent it sounds4 ,but at this time ,french culture was supreme throughout ,europe1 and ,voltaire1 cynic and skeptic1 was at once the idol and the terror of the courts4 ,he was a good business man1 and invested the money he made from his plays1 and become enormously rich4 ,he purchased an estate in ,switzerland1 just over the ,french border2 an admirable strategic location1 a sort of literary emplacement for a high-caliber gun4 ,he could have his pamphlets printed in ,germany and ,holland1 and secretly shipped into ,france1 and the ,french police were powerless to touch him4 ,the ,swiss ,calvinists were glad to have attacks made upon ,french and ,catholic absolutism1 so they let the poet alone4 ,voltaire was a frail ghost of a man1 almost a skeleton1 but with quick bright eyes in his bare skull4 ,he was ill most of his life2 when he visited ,king ,frederick he described himself as suffering from four mortal diseases1 yet he lived to the age of eighty-four1 and worked under terrific pressure all the time4 ,he carried on an enormous correspondence--more than ten thousand of his letters have been edited and published4 ,he was capable of almost every kind of meanness and malice1 but he was also capable of heroic and unselfish idealism1 as the world was now to see4 ,in the city of ,toulouse1 in southern ,france1 a young man named ,calas committed suicide1 as result of religious mania2 he was a member of a ,protestant family1 and the ,catholic authorities in ,toulouse accused the father of having murdered the boy to keep him from turning ,catholic4 ,they had no shred of evidence1 but they cruelly tortured the old man1 and finally executed him1 and confiscated the property of the family4 ,voltaire took up the case in a frenzy of indignation2 he employed investigators and lawyers1 he wrote pamphlets and circulated them1 he wrote innumerable letters and appeals2 for three years he devoted his time to making the case a political and religious issue in ,france4 ,no man could have displayed nobler public spirit1 or more genuine human sympathy2 for three years1 so he wrote1 he never smiled without feeling that he had committed a crime4 ,when at last the verdict of the ,toulouse courts was reversed1 he fell into the arms of one of the ,calas lads1 and wept like a child4 ,he said--he1 the veteran playwright3 8,this is the most splendid fifth act ,i have ever seen on any stage60 ,there came one such case after another4 ,just as in ,russia the ,black ,hundreds spread the rumor that the ,jews were accustomed to shed the blood of ,christian children1 so this ,catholic machine made war on the ,protestants by accusing them of hideous crimes4 ,voltaire espoused the 8,sirven case0 in the same fury of indignation2 it had taken the courts two hours to condemn the victims1 he said1 and nine years to do them justice6 ,out of his agony of protest came one of his greatest works1 the 8,treatise on ,toleration0--burned by the hangman1 like everything else4 ,also there came his immortal slogan1 which he took to putting on all his letters3 8crasez l'infame0--that is1 crush the infamous thing1 meaning ,catholic absolutism4 ,now ,america also has its 8infame10 which is capitalist absolutism2 and we await the arrival of some man of letters1 capable of the heroic and unselfish idealism of ,voltaire4 ,to him there were brought ten or a dozen cases of cruelty and torture in the course of twenty years2 but hardly a month passes that my mail does not contain a story of cruelty and torture equally hideous1 committed by the powers which are now destroying liberty and enlightenment in ,america4 ,consider1 for example1 the case of the ,centralia prisoners1 a story of brutality1 torture1 murder1 terrorism1 and the subornation of the law by the lumber barons of the ,northwest2 a story just as pitiful1 just as revolting1 just as worthy of ,voltaire's immortal slogan4 8,if you are not careful10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi1 8you will be accused of putting propaganda into this chapter60 ,it was as the champion of freedom of thought that ,voltaire stood before the ,french people2 he1 with his wealth and fame1 was able to do what they did not dare to do4 ,from his mountain retreat he sent his ideas all over ,europe2 and meantime the blind1 deluded rulers of ,france did all they could to plow the soil for his sowing4 ,the great-grandson of the 8grand monarch10 who ascended the throne as a child in #agae1 ruled for almost sixty years4 ,beginning with the name of 8the well-beloved10 he squandered the revenues of the state upon his mistresses1 and led his country to a series of disasters1 including the loss of the ,american colonies and ,india4 ,he left the nation bankrupt1 and died with the famous phrase1 8,after us the deluge40 ,four years later1 the old ,voltaire1 made bold by all his honors1 came down from his mountain fortress and entered ,paris4 ,he had a pageant like a conquering hero2 his plays were produced to enormous audiences1 and even the ,academy of ,richelieu welcomed him--strange irony of history6 ,it was like ,tolstoi in ,russia2 the authorities would have liked to chop off his head1 but they could only gnash their teeth in impotence4 ,however1 what their hatred could not do1 the love of the people accomplished2 ,voltaire was literally killed by kindness1 and died amid the excitements of this holiday4 ,it is interesting to us to note that among those he met in ,paris was ,benjamin ,franklin1 fellow skeptic1 scientist1 and revolutionary propagandist from the new world4 ,this was in #aggh1 two years after the ,declaration of ,independence1 and less than ten years before the ,french revolution4 ,in the case of ,voltaire we see a man of letters who ranks as one of the great world forces1 and purely and simply because of his propaganda4 ,if he had written nothing but heroic tragedies and sublime epics1 he would be a forgotten name today2 it was only because he took upon himself the task of setting free the mind of his country1 and labored at it incessantly for the greater part of his life1 that we know of him and honor him as one of the glories of ,france4 ,great as were his faults1 no one can deny that he stood to all the world for the fundamental idea of freedom of thought4 ,,chapter ,,xliv ,,the ,,trumpeter ,,of ,,revolution ,we have seen that ,voltaire was a ,tory as to art2 his revolution was of the intellect4 ,there was needed a revolutionist of the feelings1 and he appeared in the person of ,jean-,jacques ,rousseau1 a stormy1 embittered1 unhappy man1 the object of endless controversy1 continuing to our own day2 a character full of contradictions1 difficult to cover within the limits of a chapter4 ,his father was a watch-maker in ,geneva2 he ran away from home and became a vagabond1 and remained that all his life4 ,he never had any property2 as for friends1 he had them only for short periods1 because he quarreled with everyone4 ,among the occupations he followed in youth was that of a footman1 which ought to have barred him from rising in eighteenth century ,france4 ,but he wrote ballets1 operas1 comedies1 and won an entre to the salons of the great4 ,here is another 8pure0 artist2 and did you ever hear of him in that 8pure0 capacity8 ,did you know that ,jean-,jacques had written ballets1 operas and comedies8 ,could you name one of these works8 ,unless you are a specialist in literary history1 you could not2 and if ,rousseau had followed that easy career1 and kept his entre to the ,paris salons1 you would never have heard his name4 ,it was only when he became a propagandist that he earned world fame1 and it is as a propagandist that we know him4 ,he was thirty-seven years old when ,diderot1 editor of the great 8,encyclopedia10 the ,bible of the new learning in ,france1 was put into prison for writing an atheistical pamphlet4 ,rousseau went to visit him and1 while thus wrought up1 he fell to thinking about the depraved state of society1 and the causes thereof2 he wrote an essay1 and so was launched upon his career as maker of intellectual dynamite4 ,he was pursued by the authorities1 until he acquired a persecution complex2 before he died he became convinced that everyone he knew was in a conspiracy to destroy him4 ,his first important book was 8,the ,social ,contract10 a study of the state and its authority4 ,what is the basis of sovereignty8 ,what right has the state to command my obedience8 ,the answer of ,rousseau's time was that ,god had appointed a king to rule you1 and if you disobeyed this king you were hanged1 drawn and quartered1 and later on roasted to eternity4 ,rousseau's thesis was that the basis of sovereignty is popular consent2 the state is made by the general will1 and lacking such sanction1 no sovereignty exists4 ,the opening words give the keynote of the book3 8,man was born free1 and everywhere he is in chains40 ,a study of history and anthropology convinces us that the first part of this statement is false2 but that did not keep the words from becoming a revolutionary slogan4 ,the next important book was 8,the ,new ,heloise10 a love story written in the form of a series of letters4 ,french women were rebelling against being sold in marriage2 their natural desire to marry the man of their own choice was reaching a point dangerous to the old convention4 ,to be sure1 ,heloise obeyed her parents and married according to their command2 but her sufferings were so moving that she was more effective as an inspirer of revolt than if she had herself revolted4 ,then came another novel1 8,emile1 or ,the ,sentimental ,education0--that is to say1 an education according to the dictates of the natural feelings4 ,the physical and moral soundness of the infant ,emile were based upon the fact that his mother suckled him1 instead of turning him over to a wet nurse1 according to the fashion of the great world of ,france4 ,the child was raised in close contact with nature1 and followed the dictates of those natural desires1 which ,rousseau believed were always wholesome and trustworthy4 ,the youth was taught to work and be useful instead of being a culture parasite2 and in due course a pure and beautiful maiden appeared to deserve his love4 ,today ,rousseau's ideas of education are freely applied in the ,ferrer schools2 but in #agfb 8,emile0 was condemned by the ,sorbonne1 and burned by the common executioner1 and its author was forced to flee to ,switzerland1 and finally to ,england4 ,in his later years of desolation ,rousseau produced the story of his life1 known as the 8,confessions40 ,his other works are not easy for us to read1 but the 8,confessions0 will be read so long as man is interested in his own heart4 ,here for the first time in the history of our race a man of first-rate genius told the full truth about himself4 ,a great deal of it is painful truth2 we read it with dismay1 and on the basis of it ,rousseau's enemies have condemned him to infamy4 ,but never forget1 we know these painful things because ,rousseau tells them to us2 if he had concealed them1 or dressed them up to look romantic1 then we should have had quite a different ,rousseau in our minds4 ,many authors have done that1 and live enthroned in our regard4 ,but this man says to us3 much as ,i care about myself--and ,i care a great deal--,i care still more about enabling my fellowmen to understand reality4 ,and that is the spirit in which we take the 8,confessions40 ,we realize that we are not dealing with one of those feeble natures which first commit offenses1 and then find pleasure in talking about them2 we are sharing life with a deeply serious man1 who seeks in agony a cure for human ills4 ,i doubt if there has ever been a preacher of doctrine who delivered himself more completely to his enemies than ,jean-,jacques4 ,he tells us how1 not knowing how to get his bread1 he left his newly born children in care of a foundling asylum4 ,this was a custom of the time2 but as a rule those who followed the custom did not go away and write a book advising other people how to rear and educate their children6 ,for such inconsistencies his critics ridiculed him unmercifully4 ,and yet1 in spite of all they could say1 he became the trumpeter of the revolution1 political1 economic1 and cultural1 which was on the way in ,france4 ,he remains in our time a trumpeter of the social revolution which is happening before our eyes4 ,that does not mean that we are blind to the fallacies and absurdities in his doctrines4 ,we of today study education in the light of a mass of psychological knowledge1 we study government in the light of historical and economic knowledge1 we study the human soul in the light of biology1 sociology1 chemistry1 psychoanalysis--a host of sciences whose very names were unknown to ,rousseau4 ,but how do we come to possess this knowledge8 ,we possess it because ,jean-,jacques1 with the divination of a prophet and the fervor of a moral genius1 proclaimed from the housetops the right of the human spirit to be free1 and to face the facts of life1 and to choose its path in accordance with its own happiness and health4 ,with any critic of ,rousseau there is one question to be settled at the outset4 ,why do you quarrel with this man8 ,is it because you wish to correct his errors1 and clear the way to his goal of liberty1 equality1 and fraternity8 ,or are you one of those who dread the torrent of new ideas and new feelings which ,rousseau let loose upon the world8 ,is it your purpose to discredit the whole individualistic movement which he fathered1 and to take us back to the good old days when children obeyed their parents1 and servants obeyed their masters1 and women obeyed their husbands1 and subjects obeyed their popes and kings1 and students in colleges accepted without question what their professors told them8 ,says ,mrs4 ,ogi3 8,i suspect that last phrase is meant for ,professor ,babbitt40 8,it is wonderful10 says her husband1 8that he should have that name4 ,a judgment of ,providence1 without doubt60 ,,chapter ,,xlv ,,the ,,harvard ,,manner ,let it be explained at the outset that we are setting out to discuss1 not a character in a novel1 but a living person1 ,irving ,babbitt1 professor of ,french literature in ,harvard ,university2 a scholar who has set himself one goal in life1 to deliver ,america from the evil influence of ,rousseau and 8,rousseauism0--by which he means the whole modern cultural movement4 ,he has published a stately volume1 8,rousseau and ,romanticism10 three hundred and ninety-three pages1 plus twenty-three pages of introduction1 with an average of twelve quotations and citations per page1 illustrating the follies1 absurdities and monstrosities uttered or enacted by every man or woman who has at any time during the past hundred and seventy-five years ever thought a new thought1 or tried an original experiment1 or embodied an especially intense emotion in art form4 ,it makes a formidable catalogue4 ,because1 you see1 humanity proceeds by the method of trial and error2 there is no other way to proceed4 ,the pendulum of life swings to one extreme1 and then it swings to the other4 ,every movement has its lunatic fringe1 people who show us where to stop2 and what our ,harvard professor has done is to make a whole book of these extravagances and insanities4 ,he takes the fringe for the movement2 and so1 of course1 it is easy for him to prove that the human spirit ought never to have been set free2 it was a violation of 8decorum40 ,that is his favorite word1 to which he comes back in every chapter4 ,the rest of ,america has another name for it2 we call it 8the ,harvard manner40 8,of course10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi1 8you have to do up a ,harvard ,tory--that is fore-ordained4 ,but ,i recall the lunatics ,i have met in the radical movement--not merely the harmless cranks1 but the dangerous and hateful beasts6 ,what ,rousseau means to me is that ,i used to hear his praises sung by a man who has lived for twenty years by seducing young girls and getting their money40 ,says ,ogi3 8,if you are going to judge a wave by its scum1 ,i shall have to make a study of the criminals of classicism3 the horrors perpetrated by perfect gentlemen who respected the three unities1 and wrote triolets1 and wore exactly the right clothes4 ,there will be a section in this volume devoted to ,harvard ,university--see #8,the ,goose-,step1' pages #fb to #ia40 ,says ,mrs4 ,ogi3 8,come back to ,rousseau1 and explain to us why a college professor should take so much trouble to kill a man who died a hundred and fifty years ago40 8,the professor does not know why ,rousseau is still alive1 but ,i can tell him--because ,rousseau's revolution is only half completed4 ,the political part happened1 and gave us--world capitalism6 ,we aren't satisfied1 and we are gathering our muscles for another leap1 and all the world's ,tories are hanging to our coat-tails1 trying to hold us back4 ,they dig out all the old mummies from their coffins1 and dress them up and paint them to look like life1 and set them up to cry warnings to us4 ,even ,voltaire's #8l',infame'6 ,there is a clerical party in every country in ,europe1 and ,catholic trade unions1 called #8,christian ,socialist1' to cheat the workers4 ,in the ,united ,states there are the ,knights of ,columbus1 and ,tammany ,hall1 and parades of priests and cardinals up ,fifth ,avenue1 generously financed by ,wall ,street4 ,and naturally1 in such a crisis the three unities and the rest of the classical tradition are not overlooked2 so here comes our learned professor with his stately volume1 to prove to us that ,rousseau did not have the ,harvard manner4 ,the very same conspiracy1 you see1 that ,rousseau faced during his life40 8,the persecution complex80 asks ,mrs4 ,ogi4 8,don't fool yourself2 ,rousseau actually was persecuted6 ,and see what evidence he would have1 if he were alive today1 and could investigate this ,babbitt case6 ,the ,house of ,morgan1 on the corner of ,broad and ,wall streets1 just across the way from the ,united ,states ,treasury building2 and the billion dollars which this ,house of ,morgan made buying war supplies for the ,allies2 and the thirty billion dollars which the ,united ,states ,treasury paid out to save the ,house of ,morgan's ,french and ,british loans2 and the ,boston connections of the ,house of ,morgan1 ,lee1 ,higginson ,company1 with their network of banks and trust companies2 and the ,lee-,higginson and ,morgan control of the governing bodies of ,harvard ,university2 and ,harvard's answer to #8,the ,goose-,step1' the election of its distinguished graduate1 ,mr4 ,j4 ,p4 ,morgan1 to its sacred band of overseers2 and the ,boston #8,transcript1' and the ,harvard #8,lampoon1' and the ,laski case1 and the ,sacco-,vanzetti case1 and the ,boston police strike1 and ,cal ,coolidge1 the queer prank that fate played on ,boston's aristocracy4 ,picture the situation in the year #aiai1 the days of ,attorney-,general ,palmer2 the ,harvard mob smashing that police strike1 and the hundred per cent patriotic plutocrats of ,boston raiding the offices of the #8,reds1' and cracking the skulls of everybody they found there--0 8,the ,harvard manner80 says ,mrs4 ,ogi4 8,throwing them into jail1 or packing them by hundreds into rooms in office buildings without toilets1 and shipping them back to ,europe where they came from4 ,and right in the midst of that campaign1 in that same anno mirabile of #aiai1 comes our ,babbitt professor--,i mean our ,professor ,babbitt--with a schoolmaster's ferule in one hand and a slung-shot in the other1 scolding and at the same time committing mayhem upon every artist who in the past hundred and seventy-five years of history has ever had a human feeling4 ,it is supposed to be a work of scholarship1 of literary criticism2 it is written to teach #8decorum'--by such examples as this3 #8,the humanitarian1 all adrip with brotherhood1 and profoundly convinced of the loveliness of his own soul4' ,and again3 #8,both ,rousseau and his disciple ,robespierre were reformers in the modern sense--that is they are concerned not with reforming themselves1 but other men4' ,what is one going to do with a man like that80 8,what did they do with them in the ,french revolution80 asks ,mrs4 ,ogi4 8,les aristocrats la lanterne60 says her husband4 8,i've forgotten all my ,french10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi1 8and so will most of your readers4 ,but ,i'll tell you this--the professor sounds exactly like you1 except that he's on the other side60 ,,chapter ,,xlvi ,,the ,,poisoned ,,rat ,while ,france has been moving toward its revolution1 ,england has been moving away from hers1 and we now return to the foggy island to watch the course of events through this eighteenth century4 ,the crown has submitted1 and parliament has the last word in public affairs4 ,a parliament of the land-owning gentry1 elected by corruption1 we shall see it in the course of two centuries being gradually changed into a parliament of merchants and ship-owners1 of steel and coal and diamond and gold magnates1 of brewers and publishers of capitalist propaganda4 ,it was the task of eighteenth century ,england to create the bourgeois soul4 ,machinery and standardized production1 which were to make over the world1 had not yet appeared1 but when they came1 they found their psychology and culture all prepared for them by this 8nation of shop-keepers40 ,it is a world of money1 all other powers deposed1 all other standards a shell without life inside2 honor1 favor1 virtue are represented by money4 ,religion has become an affair of 8livings0 and of 8benefices40 ,politics has become an affair of party rancor1 a squabble over the spoils of office4 ,the difference between the two parties is that one is in and the other is out2 the purpose of the outs being to prove rascality against the ins1 and thus get a chance to do what the ins are doing4 ,in this bourgeois world the artist may be feeble of mind1 not knowing the reality of his time1 believing sincerely in its shams4 ,or he may be a cynic1 jeering at his time1 but taking what he can get4 ,or he may be a rebel1 speaking the truth--in which case he will starve in a garret1 or go insane1 or be thrown into prison1 or driven into exile4 ,the first to greet this new century with his writings was a man who went insane4 ,one of the great masters of ,english prose1 his fate in life was to be brought up as a 8poor relation10 and to eat the bitter bread of dependence4 ,he became a kind of educated servant to the wealthy1 and finally got a small job in the church4 ,ill most of his life1 proud1 imperious1 burning up with thwarted genius1 ,jonathan ,swift was made into a master ironist4 ,his first great book was 8,the ,tale of a ,tub10 in which he ridiculed the squabbles of the various church parties4 ,having thus shocked the church1 he applied to be a dean1 but did not get the job1 because somebody else paid a thousand pound bribe to the official having the appointment4 ,swift was told that he could have another deanery at the same price1 but he did not have the sum handy4 ,the 8ins0 of those days were called ,tories1 and the 8outs0 were called ,whigs2 they fought furiously1 and literary rats1 hiding in garrets and cellars1 wrote pamphlets of personal abuse1 which were published anonymously and circulated in the face of jail penalties4 ,like the laureate ,dryden1 our would-be dean did this vile writing2 he did it for the ,whigs1 and when he got no preferment there1 he joined the ,tories1 and was made dean of the cathedral in ,dublin4 ,there he wrote his 8,modest ,proposal0 for eating the children of ,ireland1 one of the most terrific pieces of irony in all literature4 8,look10 says the #8gloomy dean1' 8we are letting a population starve to death1 and1 what a waste of national resources1 what a violation of our fundamental principles of business economy4 ,let us feed these ,irish babies1 and when they are nice and fat1 serve them on our tables2 they will be happy during their brief span of life1 and we shall no longer have to import food from foreign parts40 ,then came 8,gulliver's ,travels10 which took its place along with 8,pilgrim's ,progress0 as required reading for children and adults4 ,it is an even more perfect allegory2 you can read it as a story pure and simple1 without any idea of an ulterior meaning4 ,the author helps you by the perfect gravity with which he describes every detail of these singular adventures4 ,first we visit the land in which the people are only six inches tall1 and so we laugh at the pettiness of human affairs4 ,then we visit the land where they are correspondingly big1 and we learn how brutal and gross and stupid we really are4 ,so on1 until we come to the land of noble and beautiful horses1 in which human beings are lewd and filthy apes4 ,so we learn the worst possible about a world which appointed a man of genius to be dean of ,st4 ,patrick's in ,dublin1 when he wanted to be dean of ,st4 ,paul's in ,london4 ,so we are ready to go insane1 and to die1 as the dean himself phrased it1 8like a poisoned rat in a hole40 ,,chapter ,,xlvii ,,virtue ,,rewarded ,prose fiction up to this time had dealt for the most part with men2 its most popular variety was the 8picaresque10 telling the adventures of vagabonds and rascals4 ,but now in this bourgeois ,england the fiction writer settles down1 and becomes respectable1 and discovers the theme which is to occupy him for the next two hundred years--the feminine heart1 and what goes on in it during the mating season4 ,watch the gentleman-turkey1 stirred by erotic excitement2 he struts up and down1 swells out his comb1 spreads his feathers1 scrapes the ground with his stiff wings4 ,and there stands the humble and retiring lady-turkey1 observing him with modest but attentive eye2 she takes a step or two away1 but does not run far4 ,what is going on in her mind8 ,what does she think of the blood-flushed comb and the spread feathers1 the heroic pose and the awe-inspiring gobble8 ,we are not permitted to enter into the psychology of a lady-turkey2 but through the magic of fiction we are permitted to watch the mind of the lady-human1 and note every detail of the process whereby she gets her mate4 ,we share her emotions1 we analyze the devices she employs--and thus1 if we belong to her sex1 we perfect our technique1 or1 if we belong to the male sex1 we learn how to write novels4 ,in this bourgeois world1 the emotions of mating are dominated by those of money4 ,society has become settled1 property relations are fixed1 and you live a routine life1 without great change or adventure--except once1 which is at this mating period4 ,here is your great chance to rise above your own class in a world of money classification4 ,a beautiful and charming maiden may catch the eye of some wealthy man2 a handsome1 dashing youth may stumble upon an heiress4 ,such is the significance of the heavenly smiles and the coy glances of bourgeois romance4 ,cupid travels about1 armed with a golden arrow1 and in the love-glints from the eyes of youth and beauty we see fortunes flying to and fro--diamonds and rubies1 manor-houses1 estates1 orders and offices1 titles to nobility4 ,and always in the background sit the chaperons1 keeping watch--old women1 whose function it is to know the grim facts of greed1 and to pass on such 8worldly wisdom0 to the young4 ,the first old woman to take up this task in ,english fiction was ,samuel ,richardson4 ,he himself was a hero for any bourgeois novel--a printer who had married his master's daughter1 and become publisher to the king4 ,he knew what money costs1 and believed in it with all his heart and soul2 in his mature years he set out to warn young women of the value of their virtue1 and point out to them the importance of a life contract in love4 ,he wrote a novel called 8,pamela2 or ,virtue ,rewarded10 telling the story of an innocent fifteen-year-old servant girl in the household of a great gentleman who makes love to her4 ,in a series of letters to her parents she exposes to us the details of this love-making1 and all her bewilderments1 agonies and fears4 ,pamela ,andrews is the very soul of humility2 but young as she is1 she knows the business facts concerning the life contract--8with all my worldly goods ,i thee endow40 ,she knows that her master is a rake and scoundrel--he gives her in the course of the story all possible evidence of that2 nevertheless1 she stands firm1 and in the end her virtue is rewarded--by marriage with this rake and scoundrel4 ,if that seems to you a strange reward of virtue1 it will be only because you do not understand this eighteenth century world4 ,what a man is personally counts for little compared with the class he belongs to4 ,he is a gentleman1 he owns houses and lands1 and ,pamela's children will be ladies and gentlemen1 and will own houses and lands4 ,this novel became the sensation of the day1 not merely in ,england1 but all over ,europe4 ,there were two large volumes1 and a sequel with two more1 but no one was bored2 great ladies sat up half the night1 weeping their eyes red over ,pamela's trials1 and welcoming her--in imagination--into the class of ladies4 ,the writers learned how to make money1 and a new profession1 that of the love-describers1 came into being4 ,,chapter ,,xlviii ,,the ,,good ,,fellow',s ,,code ,you will note in this bourgeois world two attitudes toward money2 one might be described as the attitude of the first generation1 and the other of the third4 ,the first generation has had to make the money1 and knows what money costs4 ,the third generation wants the money just as much1 but its knowledge is confined to what money will buy4 ,there is war between these two generations1 and you find it reflected in the arts2 the young and saucy artists make propaganda for one side1 while the mature and sober artists make it for the other4 ,there was in ,england at this time a gentleman whose ancestors had had money for a long time1 and who took toward it the attitude of jolly good heartedness4 ,he read this story of 8,pamela10 and it filled him with fury2 what a loathsome world1 in which1 men and women spent their time poring over cash-books and calling it virtue6 ,what would be left in life if a fashionable young gentleman could not have fun with a lower class girl without tying himself to her for life6 ,so ,henry ,fielding1 gentleman1 barrister1 and man of pleasure in ,london1 sat himself down to turn 8,pamela0 into screaming farce4 ,he took ,pamela's brother1 a young footman1 and pictured him in the household of a great lady who endeavored to lure him from the path of virtue4 ,the agonies of temptation of ,joseph ,andrews reproduced those of his sister2 but as young men were not supposed to have any virtue1 the tragedy was turned upside down4 ,this story is usually cited by the critics as an illustration of how a man of genius began a piece of propaganda1 and then got interested in his story1 and turned it into a real work of art4 ,i should alter the formula by saying that he changed from a negative to a positive kind of propaganda4 ,joseph ,andrews runs away from his wicked mistress1 taking a girl he truly loves1 and the narrative turns from a satire on ,richardson's pseudo-virtues into a portrayal of what ,fielding considers real virtue4 ,joseph and his girl fall into trouble1 and their creator1 in pleading their cause1 defends the poor and friendless all over ,england1 who do not get justice in the courts4 ,fielding knew1 because he had ridden the circuits2 being a warm-hearted man1 he created a model ,english magistrate by the name of ,squire ,allworthy--an obvious enough name--to show how the law ought to be administered4 ,fielding next took to writing plays4 ,but he ventured to make satiric allusions to 8persons of quality02 therefore he ran afoul of the ,lord ,chamberlain1 and one of his plays was banned4 ,he was disgusted1 and rather than conform1 he gave up play-writing4 ,there was no government big-wig overseeing fiction2 and so this new art form was destined to become the vehicle of social criticism4 ,in his next book this gentleman-novelist went on to write a deadly piece of satire4 ,looking out over ,europe1 he saw ,frederick1 king of ,prussia1 called 8the great10 making a raid upon ,silesia and seizing it2 he saw other royal and imperial conquerors tormenting mankind with war4 ,he took a notorious criminal1 who had recently been hanged in ,london1 and made him the hero of a novel1 which parodied in detail the glory-career of a king4 8,jonathan ,wild the ,great10 like all works of revolutionary tendency1 has received from the critics small part of its due praise4 ,there are few scenes more grim than the conclusion of the book1 the satire upon the 8consolations of religion0 when the arch-criminal dies4 ,then came 8,tom ,jones10 one of the greatest of ,english novels4 ,fielding's purpose in this story1 as he declared it1 was 8to recommend ,goodness and ,innocence40 ,in his hero he set out to show the truth about a man2 not a snuffling saint for a church-window1 but a real1 hearty good fellow1 according to ,fielding's notion4 ,what may such a young fellow do1 and what may he not do8 ,may he drink8 ,of course4 ,may he spend money freely8 ,fielding knew about that1 having married a rich wife and run through her fortune4 ,may he take money from his friends8 ,yes1 even ask for it4 ,may he take money from his mistresses8 ,and here suddenly you see the gentleman-author start up in anger4 ,he may not6 ,here is an iron-clad rule1 which ,english gentlemen enforce without compromise4 ,but then1 may he cohabit with girls of classes below his own8 ,yes1 says ,fielding1 certainly he may1 and he will2 let's be honest1 and not fool ourselves with shams4 ,thackeray1 who was loud in admiration of 8,tom ,jones10 lamented that no novelist since then had dared to tell the truth about a man4 ,in our day1 for better or worse1 the novelists have dared1 and reticence as a literary virtue is dead4 ,in conclusion1 we note the fact that ,fielding died at the age of forty-three1 8of dropsy1 jaundice1 and asthma40 ,so it appears that you may take your choice2 you may exercise self-restraint1 and be accused of hypocrisy1 and of spoiling your friends' pleasure2 or you may throw the reins upon the neck of desire1 and go through life at a gallop--and have your body give out just when your brain is ready for its best work4 ,,chapter ,,xlix ,,the ,,gauger ,,of ,,genius ,we have read about an ,english gentleman-novelist who wasted his health and died at the age of forty-three2 and we next have to hear the story of a ,scotch plowman-poet who treated himself in the same way and died at the age of thirty-seven4 ,such men present a painful problem to their friends1 and also to their critics--since in art circles it is not considered good form to set up moral standards4 ,however1 in this case ,robert ,burns has solved the problem for us2 he lacked nothing in clearness of insight or plainness of speech concerning his own follies1 and spoke of his 8self-contempt bitterer to drink than blood40 ,he was one of seven children of a peasant family1 and was born on a stormy ,january day1 in a clay cottage of which the roof was blown off a few days later4 ,he followed the plow-tail all his early years1 and wrote that his life until sixteen was 8the toil of a slave40 ,the few books they could borrow the children would read at meal times1 or snatching a few words in the fields4 ,such peasant slaves are not supposed to acquire culture1 and if they do so1 it is at the cost of health of mind and body4 ,robert ,burns was given to fits of melancholy1 and to moods of wild excess2 he speaks of his 8passions raging like demons40 ,he was a headstrong1 impatient youth1 disgusted by the falsities and shams of conventional religion4 ,he had to find his own code in life1 and the fact that he found it too late to save himself is our loss4 ,this peasant1 toiling on a rocky tenant farm1 discovered in himself the gift of exquisite melody4 ,his feelings poured themselves out in verses in the homely ,scotch dialect1 then considered a barbarous thing1 unworthy of literature4 ,he would compose these verses all day long while guiding the plow1 and then1 coming home at night1 he would sit in a garret room and write them out4 ,not until he was twenty-seven years old did he succeed in having them published4 ,they appeared at a time when the family was ruined1 and the poet himself being pursued by officers of the law1 at the instance of the father of a girl he loved4 ,the twenty pounds which he got from this first volume saved his life1 so he declared4 ,he leaped into fame all over ,scotland1 and spent a year in ,edinburgh1 where he was fted by the great4 ,but he did not keep their favor1 because he persisted in intimacy with his humble friends1 and also1 alas6 with the taverns4 ,he went back to the plow1 more set than ever in his bitterness against the world of privilege and rank4 ,it was a time when the great world was in the habit of pensioning its poets1 but the ,tories controlled in ,scotland1 and 8,bobbie0 ,burns was a ,whig1 and turned into a ,republican1 the same thing as a ,bolshevik today4 ,the best that lovers of his poetry could get him was a job as a gauger of liquor barrels1 at the princely salary of sixty pounds a years4 ,even that he had difficulty in holding2 because the ,french revolution came sweeping over ,europe1 and frightened the governing class of ,england into just such a frenzy of reaction as we in ,america witnessed in #aiai4 ,in his capacity as exciseman ,burns captured a smuggling ship with four cannon2 he purchased the cannon at auction1 and sent them to the ,french ,legislative ,assembly as a mark of sympathy4 ,imagine1 if you can1 an ,american customs officer in #aiai shipping four machine-guns to the ,soviet government of ,russia1 and you may realize how close the poet came to losing the salary upon which his wife and children had to exist4 ,we shall see other poets shrinking in horror from the execution of ,king ,louis1 and throwing in their lot with reaction4 ,but here is one who stood by the down-trodden of the earth1 and voiced their feelings to the end4 ,not merely is he the national poet of ,scotland2 he is1 in spite of the handicap of dialect1 the voice of the peasant and the land-slave throughout the ,english-speaking world4 ,when he writes 8the rank is but the guinea's stamp10 he is the voice of the labor movement in ,england and of democracy in ,america4 ,his work is beloved by humble people2 you would be surprised to know how widely it is read--perhaps more widely than any other poetry among the poor4 ,the people know this voice1 they know this heart1 with all its loves and hates1 its longings and griefs4 ,there is no man who has come from the toiling masses1 self-taught and self-made1 who has expressed their feelings so completely4 ,and note that he has1 not merely beauty and passion1 but keen insight and power of brain2 he can think for his people1 as well as feel with them4 ,he is not a bit afraid to use his art to preach and to scold1 to discuss moral problems1 to storm at social injustice and to ridicule church dogma4 ,what though such a man did drink and squander himself2 that also is a part of the worker's tragedy4 ,he paid for it the price which the workers pay1 and life spared him no part of the suffering and shame1 nor did he spare himself the remorse4 ,he wrote his own epitaph1 in which he spoke of himself as 8the poor inhabitant below10 and recorded that 8thoughtless folly laid him low and stained his name40 ,because there is no spiritual value greater than honesty1 the judgment of his people has raised him high and crowned his name with immortality4 ,,chapter ,l ,,the ,,brain ,,proprietor 8,why do you call this a work on art10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi1 8when you are dealing entirely with literature80 8,all the arts are one10 says her husband4 8,they are expressions of the human spirit1 and the material they use is comparatively unimportant4 ,we realize this when we see an artist like ,michelangelo using blocks of marble and molecules of paint and printed words1 and giving us with each medium the record of the same personality4 ,there have been others who used the acted drama and the lyric1 like ,shakespeare2 or words and music--0 8,let us see how your thesis works out with music10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi4 ,up to the end of the eighteenth century music has been either an adjunct of religious propaganda1 or else a leisure-class plaything and decoration4 ,the musicians are commanded to come and entertain their lords and masters1 while the latter feast and dance and gossip4 ,the musician as an artist1 a lover of beauty for its own sake1 exists at his own peril4 ,for example1 ,mozart2 at the age of six he was a child prodigy1 exhibited as a curiosity before all the crowned heads of ,europe2 but he grew up to a life of slow starvation1 and a death from tuberculosis at the age of thirty-five4 ,the sum total of his earnings from seven hundred and sixty-nine compositions was not enough to keep his small family alive4 ,but now comes a mighty genius1 who discovers how to make music an art of power1 an expression of the deepest experiences of the human soul4 ,beethoven was born in #aggj1 his mother being a cook and his father a broken-down musician drinking himself to death4 ,beethoven became the child slave of this drunkard2 he was driven by beatings to practice the piano at the age of four1 and at the age of seven had a job in a theater orchestra4 ,i wonder1 when we go to the 8movies0 and listen to the banging and scraping1 may there be among those servants of imbecility some lad who is destined to raise the art of music to a new height1 and to die in misery for his pains8 ,beethoven went to ,vienna to earn his living as entertainer to the dilettante aristocracy of that pleasure-loving city4 ,he was eccentric1 self-absorbed1 possessed by his visions1 never happy except when he was composing1 or out in the country where he could give free rein to his delight in nature4 ,it was his fate to teach music to the children of the rich1 and to play for grown-up rich children in their salons4 ,they were accustomed to chatter while men of genius attempted to entertain them2 but ,beethoven thought his playing was of importance1 and when they failed to keep silence he struck his fist upon the piano keys1 and sprang up1 exclaiming3 8,i will not play for such swine60 ,a terrible calamity befell him1 the worst that a musician could imagine--he began to grow deaf4 ,at the age of thirty he could no longer hear a musical note4 ,that seemed the ruin of his life2 his enemies jeered1 saying that he poured out his preposterous compositions because he did not know how horrible they sounded4 ,also ,beethoven suffered from near-sightedness1 caused by smallpox in childhood4 ,his health at times gave way entirely1 and he contemplated suicide4 8,my art alone deterred me10 he wrote4 ,he was1 like ,milton1 a ,puritan1 though he did not use the word4 ,he had an ideal of love1 and did not squander himself in casual intrigues4 ,his profession brought him into intimacy with the ladies of the great world2 they would be overwhelmed by his genius1 but then they would think it over1 and realize what it would mean to marry a social inferior--and a deaf one at that4 ,one brilliant young lady tortured the great man's heart1 and then went off and married a count4 ,so ,beethoven withdrew into himself1 becoming more eccentric1 more irritable1 and more passionate and terrifying in his compositions4 ,said ,weber when he heard the ,third ,symphony3 8,beethoven is now quite mad40 ,the composer's life was one long struggle with poverty and debt4 ,there were wealthy noblemen in ,vienna who appreciated his genius1 and wanted him to stay and play for them2 they subscribed an income for him1 but then forgot to pay it1 and left him to struggle along4 ,to be sure1 he was none too easy with his patrons2 he went to stay with one1 and the good man persisted in taking off his hat every time he laid eyes on ,beethoven4 ,the composer1 who abhorred ceremony1 ran away4 ,beethoven was a reader of ,plutarch1 and held the ideals of the old ,roman republic2 he believed in universal suffrage1 and in liberty1 and had no hesitation in voicing his convictions to anyone4 ,he hailed ,napoleon as a defender of liberty1 and dedicated his 8,eroica0 symphony to him4 ,later on1 when ,napoleon accepted a crown1 ,beethoven changed this dedication1 8,to the memory of a great man40 ,he dedicated another symphony to a ,french general1 the conqueror of the ,bastille2 and you can imagine how reactionary ,vienna welcomed that4 ,after the defeat of ,napoleon1 the monarchs entered into what they called the 8,holy ,alliance10 to rivet ,catholic absolutism upon the continent forever4 ,vienna became the center of world reaction1 and dungeon and torture were the fate of men who raised their voices for human rights4 ,here was ,beethoven1 old1 deaf1 and poverty-stricken2 but he never yielded an inch of his principles4 8,words are bound in chains10 he said1 8but sounds are still free40 ,he poured his feelings into his wonderful ,ninth ,symphony1 which occasioned such a tornado of applause that the police considered it necessary to interfere4 ,here1 you see1 was no maker of pretty sounds for the entertainment of the rich2 here was a great mind1 one who read and thought for himself1 and understood not merely dancing and mating1 but the nature of organized society4 ,in a time of universal subservience and fawning he clenched his hands and behaved like a democrat4 ,when his brother1 full of the pride of a newly rich bourgeois1 presented him with a card inscribed1 8,johann van ,beethoven1 ,land ,proprietor10 the composer scrawled under it1 8,ludwig van ,beethoven1 ,brain ,proprietor40 ,there is a story of his meeting with the poet ,goethe4 ,as we shall see1 ,goethe had made his way by conforming to the customs of a court2 he was now sixty-three years of age1 stiff to the rest of the world1 but pliable to the nobility4 ,beethoven was forty-two1 willing to be humble to a poet of genius1 but not to rank and arrogance4 ,they met in the open air1 in a park where there were many people2 and suddenly came word that the duke and the empress were coming4 ,the people formed two lines1 and stood1 hats in hand1 to do homage2 and ,goethe took his place among them4 ,beethoven was furious2 he remonstrated with the poet in vain1 then he jammed his hat down over his head and strode toward the duke and empress1 and they were the ones who did homage to him4 ,goethe never forgot this scene1 and he did not care to listen to ,beethoven's music1 because he said he found it 8disturbing40 ,we are told by our 8art for art's sake0 dilettanti that art has nothing to do with moral questions4 ,let them take their answer from the father of modern music1 the greatest genius who has used that lofty art4 ,no higher authority could be found2 and his words were these3 8,i recognize no sign of superiority in mankind other than goodness40 ,by that principle he lived1 and by it he wrote2 his art is overwhelmingly ethical1 and if we were to tear up every record of his life1 every word in the way of title or dedication or inscription upon his compositions1 if we had nothing but the musical notes of his sonatas and symphonies1 we should get precisely the same impressions2 we should know that we were in the presence of a titanic conflict of the human will against the forces of fate1 the blind cruelties of nature and the deliberate cruelties of class4 ,we might not know that this man became deaf at the height of his powers2 we might have no definite image to attach to the terrible hammer strokes of the ,fifth ,symphony2 but we should know that here is torture1 here is defeat and despair crying out1 here is loveliness broken to pieces1 trampled1 crushed out of life2 here also is man1 clenching his hands and setting his teeth in grim resolve1 proclaiming the supremacy of his own spirit1 and rising to heights of power1 in which he makes his joy out of the very materials of his torment4 ,some friend in ,beethoven's presence called upon ,god2 and the composer answered with the motto of his life3 8,o man1 help thyself60 ,,chapter ,,li ,,politics ,,is ,,fate ,we come now to one of the great intellects of modern times1 a genius who made the culture of ,germany known to the rest of the world4 ,he is cited1 along with ,shakespeare1 as an illustration of how great art holds itself aloof from propaganda2 so it will be worth our while to study him carefully1 and see how he lived and voiced the aristocratic ideals of his age4 ,johann ,wolfgang ,goethe was born in ,frankfort1 his father being a wealthy lawyer4 ,through his eighty-three years of life he never knew a moment's inconvenience or waste of time from poverty4 ,he was sent to the university1 but was not interested in the study of law1 which his father tried to force upon him2 he studied the things he cared for1 and incidentally gave himself to a life of pleasure1 so that he came home at the age of nineteen with a severe hemorrhage4 ,it was the period of 8,storm and ,stress0 in ,german literature2 ,rousseau and his wicked 8,romanticism0 had crossed the ,rhine1 and here was all the youth of ,germany revolting against writing poetry in ,french2 they insisted upon dealing with ,german heroes and experiencing unrestrained ,german emotions4 ,goethe was reading ,shakespeare2 and1 spurning the classical forms1 he wrote a drama about ,goetz von ,berlichingen1 a medieval ,german knight who was big and bold and turbulent4 ,this made ,goethe a hero of the new insurgency4 ,also he wrote a story entitled 8,the ,sorrows of ,werther10 about a young man who yearned agonizingly for the wife of his friend1 and finally committed suicide4 ,goethe himself did not commit suicide1 but lived to regret these youthful extravagances4 ,he fell in love more than once in these tumultuous days1 his experience being exactly the opposite to that of ,beethoven2 it was the poet who was aristocratic and prudent1 and it was the girl who suffered4 ,goethe had a fear of marriage1 because it would interfere with his genius2 but it is worth noting that the course he adopted brought him a great deal of unhappiness and waste of time4 ,at the age of twenty-six his destiny was decided by a meeting with the young ,duke of ,weimar4 ,the duke was twenty1 and conceived an intense admiration for the poet1 and besought him to come and live at his court4 ,to tempt him1 and to keep him there1 he gave him a beautiful home1 together with some acres of land for a garden1 and made him a state councilor with a salary1 and before long gave him a title1 enabling him to put the magic word 8von0 before his name4 ,thus ,goethe became a court writer and a court man4 ,you may call him the greatest of court writers and the most dignified of court men2 nevertheless1 there is a whole universe of difference between such a life1 and that of an outsider and rebel like ,beethoven4 ,the only trace of his youthful revolt which ,goethe kept was in matters having to do with himself4 ,he saved part of his time for his work1 he took to traveling to get away from court functions1 and in his later years1 secure in his fame and power1 he withdrew into his own home1 and the court had to come to him4 ,thus he maintained the dignity of the intellectual man2 but in his art ideals he became a strong conservative2 and as for political and social ideals1 he solved the problem by having nothing to do with them4 ,it would be easy to make ,goethe less attractive1 by mentioning that the court lady who became his mistress for the next ten years had a husband somewhere in the background4 ,but that would not be fair1 because it was the custom of the time1 and nobody in court saw anything wrong with adultery4 ,but when ,goethe1 somewhere around the age of forty1 fell very much in love with a daughter of the people and made her his mistress1 court circles were shocked2 they were still more shocked1 when1 after she had borne him a son1 he brought her to his home2 they were speechless1 when in the end he married her4 ,she justified their worst expectations by turning into a drunkard2 and that was hard for a very dignified and reserved man of letters4 ,goethe traveled to ,italy1 and fell in love with the classical ideal of art1 and wrote an imitation ,greek play4 ,coming back to ,weimar1 he took up court duties1 including the organizing of a fire brigade and going to war4 ,the ,french revolution had come1 and ,king ,louis of ,france was a prisoner1 together with his beautiful ,austrian queen1 ,marie ,antoinette1 who had asked why the people did not eat cake if they could not get bread4 ,the sovereigns of ,europe hastened to rescue this brilliant wit1 and to overthrow the monster of revolution4 ,goethe's duke went along1 with ,goethe in his train4 ,the poet showed his attitude toward the whole matter by writing a musical comedy while at the training camp1 and gathering botanical specimens during the fighting4 ,this attitude he explained by saying that he had to shut his eyes to the events of his time1 because otherwise he would have been driven mad4 ,and ,i admit that it was painful to see the movement for freedom run wild in the ,terror1 and to see it betrayed by ,napoleon1 and to see the ,french people lured into a war of conquest1 so that ,voltaire's 8l',infame0 was able to pose as a champion of national freedom1 and thus to rivet its power upon the peoples once again4 ,but why did these things happen8 ,it was because men of genius and intellect had been indifferent to the misery of the ,french people1 their degradation and enslavement4 ,it was because when the people did rise and throw off their tyrants1 there were so few voices to explain the meaning of this event1 and to defend the revolution's right to be4 ,when ,goethe went out with his duke1 and lent the sanction of his name to the counter revolution1 it was he who was making inevitable the ,terror1 it was he who was delivering the revolution to ,napoleon4 ,bloodshed and misery overwhelmed ,europe for twenty-five years2 and ,goethe1 by withdrawing to his study and occupying himself with poetry and scientific research1 encouraged the worst weakness of ,german philosophy and letters--the tendency to lull itself with high-sounding1 abstract words1 while the real life of the nation goes to the devil4 ,reality broke in harshly enough upon this poet4 ,sixteen years after his military foray into ,france1 the tables were turned1 and ,napoleon's cannon-balls came tumbling through the beautiful gardens at ,weimar4 ,here were ,french troopers1 flushed with the victory of ,jena1 pillaging the town1 robbing the poet of both his wine and his money1 and threatening to kill him in his bed4 ,two years later came the peace negotiations1 and the poet lent his presence to balls and fetes1 and was summoned to an audience with the master of ,europe4 ,he was then fifty-nine years old1 a world genius1 and ,napoleon was thirty-nine years old1 a world conqueror2 the older man went1 and permitted himself to be inspected by the younger4 ,goethe had a handsome presence1 and ,napoleon was pleased4 8,you are a man60 he exclaimed4 8,how old are you80 he demanded2 and then3 8,you are very well preserved0--as if this were a ,grecian scholar being purchased as a slave by a ,roman proconsul6 8,you have written tragedies80 demanded ,napoleon2 and a courtier hastened to mention that the poet had written several--also he had translated ,voltaire's tragedy1 8,mahomet40 8,it is not a good piece10 said ,napoleon1 and went on to disapprove of dramas in which fate played a part1 8,what are they talking about with their fate8 ,la politique est la fatalit40 ,here was an utterance that ,goethe might well have applied through all the rest of his life4 ,i could take it as a motto for this book4 8,politics is fate60 ,hardly could one pack more wisdom into five words of ,french or three of ,english6 ,but ,goethe chose to keep his salary and position in the court1 and to overlook the power of organized society over the individual soul4 ,when the time came for the ,german people to revolt against ,napoleon he had no word of encouragement--quite the contrary1 he pronounced it folly4 ,nor had he any word of protest against the cruelties of the ,holy ,alliance4 ,yet1 see the inconsistency6 ,his greatest work is 8,faust10 a study of the problem of duty and happiness4 ,faust tries pleasure1 he tries learning for learning's sake1 and it brings him nothing4 ,in the end he accepts useful service as the only ideal1 and the draining of swamps and cultivating of land as a moral occupation4 ,but what is the use of such work1 if statesmen are permitted to make war1 and to destroy in a few hours all that generations have built up8 ,you may believe in aristocratic politics or in democratic politics2 but how can you believe in the possibility of human happiness without wisdom in statesmen8 ,there is a better side to ,goethe1 which must not be overlooked4 ,he was magnanimous1 open-minded1 and a friend to all men of genius4 ,he met the poet ,schiller1 ten years younger than himself1 ill in health and struggling with cruel poverty4 ,schiller was a poet of freedom1 and stayed that to the end of his life4 ,his first successful drama was 8,the ,robbers10 a glorification of revolt against medieval tyranny2 his last was 8,william ,tell10 whose hero set ,switzerland free from the ,austrian yoke4 ,the fact that ,schiller was of humble origin made no difference to ,goethe2 he brought the young poet to ,weimar1 and got him a pension from the duke1 and became his intimate friend4 ,and that was the best thing that happened in ,goethe's life1 for ,schiller with his fine sincerity and idealism drove the older man to work4 ,we are accustomed to see these two great names coupled together1 and the critics point out that ,schiller was the enthusiast1 the 8propagandist10 while ,goethe1 the serene ,olympian temperament1 was the greater poet4 ,the critics do not mention that ,schiller had to waste most of his life doing wretched hack work1 and died of tuberculosis at the age of forty-six4 ,if ,goethe1 with all his leisure and independence1 had died at that age1 his greatest work would have been lost4 ,can anyone deny that we get a world view from the writings of ,goethe2 that he has definite conclusions as to every aspect of human life8 ,can anyone deny that his dramas and his novels1 even his lyric poems1 are saturated with philosophy8 ,it so happens that his point of view is that which has been accepted by tradition and critical authority through all the ages2 therefore it slides down easily1 it does not taste like medicine1 and we do not think of it as propaganda4 ,what is this point of view8 ,the world is a place of blind and generally aimless strife1 and scholars and men of genius are powerless to control it1 and can only keep out of its way4 8,renounce10 said ,goethe2 and what is the first of all things you must renounce8 ,manifestly1 the dream that you can manage your own time4 ,live simply1 develop your highest faculties1 leave a message and an example to the world2 and somehow1 at some future date--you do not attempt to say when or how--this message and this example may take effect1 and truth and justice and mercy may prevail4 ,meantime1 since you must live1 and since the ruling classes own all the means of life1 you must be polite to them1 you must fit yourself into their ways1 you must be a gentleman1 a courtier1 a man of property4 ,thus by your example and daily practice you become a prop to the established order2 and by the automatic operation of economic forces you become less and less tolerant of all rebels and disturbers of the peace4 ,because you know only the wealthy and the noble1 you come to deal with them exclusively in your art works1 you interpret their feelings1 and behold life from their point of view4 ,all critics unite in declaring that this is ,reality1 this is ,nature1 this is ,art2 while to object to this1 and voice any other point of view1 is ,idealism1 ,preaching1 and ,propaganda4 ,,chapter ,,lii ,,behind ,,the ,,hedge-,,rows ,spreading the magic carpet of the imagination1 we take flight from the free and easy court of ,weimar to the home of an ,english rector1 where impropriety is scarcely whispered1 and where a little old maid of genius lives amid tea-parties and the embroidering of linen and the visiting of the poor1 interrupted at intervals by the major crises of births1 marriages and deaths4 ,jane ,austen was the youngest of seven children1 who dwelt together in that amity which the ,bible recommends but which frail humanity infrequently realizes4 ,she was a genius without eccentricities1 egotisms or rebellions2 never did a writer of immortal books live a more conventional life or have less to write about4 ,she had no literary friends1 not even at the end of her life4 ,her best work was done at the age of twenty-two1 and was a secret kept from the members of her family4 ,she wrote on little sheets of paper1 which could be quickly hidden under a blotter or a piece of 8fancy work40 ,her books were not published until late in her life1 and then they were published anonymously4 ,she died of tuberculosis at the age of forty-two4 ,the characters in her novels are the people of the world she knew4 ,her theme is1 of course1 the theme of all bourgeois fiction1 the property marriage4 ,here we see the golden love-glints flashing from ,cupid's eyes2 here we see the fortunes sailing about upon breezes of emotion2 here we see ,sensibility controlled by ,sense4 ,not great fortunes1 you understand1 but modest ones1 such as entitle one to be on the visiting list of an ,english country rector4 ,a fortune sufficient to enable the hero to escape the inconvenience of working1 and to live in the country and exhibit to mankind a beautiful and graceful specimen of the human race4 ,a fortune sufficient to enable him to marry a lady of ,sense and ,sensibility1 and to provide her with a beautiful home and a garden1 and a few servants1 and maintenance for whatever number of children it may please ,providence to send4 ,that is the sort of fortune for which ,jane ,austen's heroines are competing1 and which each of them invariably gets--the bourgeois happy ending4 ,do not misunderstand me3 her heroines are not mercenary--that is1 not with their conscious minds4 ,the mercenary elements in their lives are instinctive and conventional2 the laws of the ,british leisure classes1 of 8gentlefolk40 ,these laws ,jane ,austen never questioned1 nor does anyone of her heroines ever question them4 ,therefore it is possible for these ladies to be mercenary to the point of ferocity1 yet at the same time to be sentimental and even charming4 ,if you travel through the ,jane ,austen country you find the roads lined with hedge-rows1 which bear flowers in the springtime1 and are full of birds1 and afford opportunity for delightful descriptions in novels2 also they afford thrilling adventures1 because a heroine can stand behind a hedge-row and listen to her best friend discussing her to her lover4 ,outside these hedge-rows walk common people of all sorts2 farm laborers on their way to fourteen hours of animal-like toil2 factory workers1 pale and stunted2 soldiers on the march2 able seamen paying a visit to home2 tradesmen1 tourists--all sorts of persons one does not know4 ,behind the hedge-rows dwell the 8gentlefolk10 carefully guarded by the police magistrates2 and the common people never by any chance penetrate the hedge-rows1 except in the capacity of servants4 ,so the young ladies of the 8gentle0 family meet no men save such as have been carefully investigated and approved2 so it is possible for these ladies to be full of ,sensibility--that is1 quivering with excitement at the male approach--and yet entirely innocent of mercenary motives1 and entirely safe from the danger of making an unmercenary match4 ,how perfectly this system works you may note in ,jane ,austen's novels4 ,there are eight heroines1 and eight fortunes to be married4 ,one of the heroines takes the risk of marrying a clergyman who has no money except his 8living40 ,two others marry clergymen who1 in addition to their 8livings10 have good financial prospects4 ,the other five marry non-clerical gentlemen of wealth4 ,mostly these fortunes come from land2 everywhere over the ,jane ,austen novel there hovers a magic presence known as the 8entailed estate40 ,in only one case is there any hint of vulgar origin for the fortune1 in a recent connection with 8trade40 ,of all the fortunes1 only one has actually been gained by the man who possesses it and bestows it upon the heroine2 and this man has gained it in a most respectable ,christian way--that is to say1 not by 8trade10 but by killing and robbery4 ,he has been a naval captain1 and brings home his share of the prizes taken4 ,the great crimes and horrors of the world lie outside the hedge-rows surrounding the ,jane ,austen rectory4 ,we can hear the guns and smell the powder smoke1 but the deadly missiles never pass the magic barrier4 ,two of ,jane's brothers are naval officers1 and they come and go in imposing uniforms2 the ,napoleonic wars are on1 and they are guarding the channel1 and in later life become admirals4 ,an intimate friend of the family is ,warren ,hastings1 who conquered ,india for the ,british2 when he was placed on trial for wholesale graft1 he explained by saying that when he considered his opportunities1 he marveled1 not that he had taken so much1 but that he had not taken more4 ,nothing of anything like this enters into the novels4 ,what does enter are the quiverings of ,sensibility1 the ups and downs of the 8tender emotions40 ,when we were children we used to take a daisy and pull off the petals1 and with petal number one we would say3 8,he loves me10 and with petal number two3 8,he loves me not10 and so on4 ,with petal number one our heart goes up1 and with petal number two it goes down4 ,there is another question1 equally thrilling3 8,do ,i love him1 or do ,i not80 ,many things get in the way2 ,pride and ,prejudice1 for example4 ,it is hard to know our own minds2 and sometimes when we hesitate too long1 it is necessary for the older members of our family to apply ,persuasion4 7,i am making puns on the titles of the novels47 ,i would not be understood to disparage this little ,english old maid4 ,she did not make her world1 in which the father of the family preaches in the name of the ,prince of ,peace1 and the sons go out to kill and loot4 ,she is a most charming and witty old maid1 and her queer people are alive in every throb of their quivering hearts4 ,she was a sly little body1 and we suspect her of knowing more than she tells4 ,there was a terrible scandal whispered concerning her1 which she vehemently denied2 we hate to pass it on1 but this is a book of plain speaking and we have to do our duty--so let it be recorded that some of the neighbors suspected ,jane ,austen of watching them at tea-parties and church fairs1 with the intention of putting their peculiarities into her books6 ,,chapter ,,liii ,,tory ,,romance ,upon our first visit to ,scotland we kept low company2 but now we return to dwell in a castle1 and play the host to our ,sovereign ,lord the ,king4 ,walter ,scott was born in ,edinburgh in #agga1 the son of a prosperous lawyer who held the high office of sheriff4 ,the father made a specialty of his country's antiquities1 and the boy was brought up1 as it were1 in the property-room of a moving picture studio4 ,he was lame1 which made it impossible for him to repeat the valorous deeds of his ancestors2 so he took to dreams1 and gave the world a new form of art1 the historical romance4 ,the ,french revolution occurred in his youth1 and he reacted from it as did all his class4 ,it was the job of ,british ,toryism to crush the republican idea2 with money derived from the trade of the whole world1 it subsidized the kings and emperors of ,europe in their attacks upon ,france4 ,the result was to raise up ,napoleon1 and before ,napoleon was beaten ,europe had waded through twenty-five years of blood4 ,walter ,scott's function was to glorify the ancient loyalties and pieties in whose name that world-crime was committed2 and for his services he was made a baronet1 and paid a million dollars1 equal to five or ten times as much in our money4 ,personally he was a generous and kindly gentleman1 but he lent his name and influence to the most vicious rowdies of his party4 ,nor was he content with writing2 he turned out and did his part as a smasher of the 8,reds40 ,at the age of forty-one we find him writing to the poet ,southey like an earlier incarnation of ,attorney-,general ,palmer4 8,you are quite right in apprehending a ,jacquerie2 the country is mined below our feet40 ,he goes on to tell how he discovered a meeting of weavers in a large manufacturing village1 and how he did his duty as an officer of the law4 8,i apprehended the ringleaders and disconcerted the whole project2 but in the course of my inquiries1 imagine my surprise at discovering a bundle of letters and printed manifestoes1 from which it appeared that the ,manchester ,weavers' ,committee corresponds with every manufacturing town in the ,south and ,west of ,scotland1 and levies a subsidy of #bs4 #f;d4 per man--7an immense sum7--for the ostensible purpose of petitioning ,parliament for redress of grievances1 but doubtless to sustain them in their revolutionary movements4 ,an energetic administration1 which had the confidence of the country1 would soon check all this2 but it is our misfortune to lose the pilot when the ship is on the breakers4 ,but it is sickening to think of our situation40 ,walter ,scott's literary career began with narrative poems based upon the love-makings and quarrelings of old ,scottish chieftains4 ,then he began writing novels on these same themes1 and it was as if he had struck a pick into a pit full of golden nuggets4 ,to his ,tory age he came as a heaven-sent magician with exactly the right spells to prop up the tottering old system4 ,the public began to buy the ,waverley novels so fast that it was impossible to get them bound in time4 ,england went wild over them1 and ,europe as well2 one million1 four hundred thousand volumes were sold in ,france alone4 ,this was the time of the 8,holy ,alliance10 and another ,king ,louis had been set upon the ,french throne4 ,it was not quite the proper thing for an eminent legal gentleman to write novels1 so ,scott published the books anonymously1 and always denied their authorship2 but he did not refuse to take the money4 ,he was a fluent writer1 and could turn out a volume in a month or six weeks1 and would get a thousand pounds before he had finished it4 ,never was there such prosperity1 since the days of ,aladdin and his wonderful lamp4 ,our ,tory novelist was a big overgrown boy2 he could never have written such propaganda otherwise4 ,he began to spend his money as a boy would spend it--to make real the world of chivalry and romance in nineteenth century ,scotland1 fully launched into the age of capitalist industrialism6 ,he built himself an imitation castle of colossal size1 8with a tall tower at either end 444 sundry zigzagged gables 444 a myriad of indentations and parapets1 and machicolated eaves2 most fantastic waterspouts2 labelled windows1 not a few of them painted glass 444 stones carved with heraldries innumerable40 ,and inside1 of course1 were all the stage properties1 8cuirasses1 helmets1 swords of every order1 from the claymore and rapier to some ,german executioner's swords40 ,here our hero kept open house to all the world of rank and fashion1 with gay hunting parties and dances1 drinking bouts1 and singing of ballads and the sounding of pibrochs4 ,it was his aim1 in his own words1 8to found a family02 besides becoming a baron1 he married his eldest son to an heiress1 and the climax of his career came when ,king ,george ,,iv came to visit his northern dominion1 and to be the novelist's guest4 ,it so happened that this king was an odious fat lecher2 but that made no difference1 he was ,sir ,walter's ,most ,gracious and ,sovereign ,lord4 ,in an ecstasy of loyalty1 the novelist took possession of a glass from which ,his ,majesty had drunk a toast4 ,this was to be preserved as the most sacred of the treasures of ,abbotsford2 but1 alas1 the novelist put it in his pocket1 and in a moment of absent-mindedness sat down on it1 and cut himself severely6 ,it did not occur to his pious soul that this might be an effort of ,providence to teach him something about drinking1 or about the worship of lecherous kings4 ,here in ,hollywood we see these magic castles arise on the movie lots2 we see the costumes reproduced with minute exactitude1 and then surmounting them we see the heads of screen dolls1 male and female1 lounge lizards and jazz dancers and queens from department stores and manicure parlors4 ,and just so it is in the novels of ,sir ,walter3 the costumes and scenery are those of old-time ,scotland1 but the characters are the gentlemen and servants and tenants of ,scott's own neighborhood4 ,he had creative energy and a sense of humor1 he makes the game very real1 and we can enjoy it1 provided we know what we are getting4 ,it is not even ,scott's own time1 it is merely the ,tory propaganda of that time4 ,it is medievalism and absolutism dressed up and glorified1 with every trace of blood and filth and horror wiped away2 a fictionized sermon upon the text3 ,vote the ,conservative ticket4 ,but alas for the dreams of stand-pat poets6 ,first came the ruin of his personal hopes4 ,among the rascals of his gang were two who persuaded him into a publishing business1 to reap the millions out of his popularity4 ,they stole everything in sight1 and then went bankrupt1 and left him at the age of fifty-five with a debt of a hundred and seventeen thousand pounds4 ,he set to work to write pot-boilers and pay it off2 an action which has made him a hero to his biographers4 ,and of course1 it is an honorable thing for an artist to pay his debts2 we all know that most disagreeable of characters1 the ,bohemian genius who borrows from everybody he meets and repays nothing4 ,but it seems necessary to point out that a novelist owes two debts2 one to his business creditors1 and the other to those who are to read his books in future time4 ,we are not satisfied with ,sir ,walter's pot-boilers1 and we deny that a man of genius has a right to drive himself to death and bring on a stroke of paralysis in four years1 in order to satisfy a romantic dream of honor4 ,equally pitiful was the wreck of ,sir ,walter's political ideals4 ,in vain did he glorify the loyalty of the ,scotch peasants1 their fidelity to their lairds2 in vain was all his hounding of the rebellious weavers with the weapons of the law4 ,they continued to organize1 and the peasants began to mutter and snarl2 they wanted the vote1 they clamored for rights both political and economic4 ,a most wicked project known as the ,reform ,bill came up before ,parliament1 to give the vote to common working people2 and ,sir ,walter1 sixty years old and ill1 persisted in taking part in the campaign4 ,he made a speech in which he warned the audience that all these licentious movements came from ,france4 ,this was forty years after the ,french revolution1 and the ,bolshevik bogie had lost its power to terrify2 ,sir ,walter was hissed by his audience4 ,later on he personally saw to the arrest of a radical rascal on the street1 and got himself stoned and mobbed4 ,it was a shock he never got over1 and he carried the memory to his grave a year or two later4 ,fate is usually kind to aged ,tories of this sort2 it takes them off the stage of life before the failure of their hopes is too apparent4 ,imagine the shock to this chivalrous old soul if he could come out of his grave today1 and visit the ,house of ,parliament1 and hear the 8left wing0 members1 elected from his beloved highlands1 shouting for the ,dictatorship of the ,proletariat6 ,now indeed would he say3 8,the country is mined below our feet60 ,,chapter ,,liv ,,the ,,meaning ,,of ,,magic ,the effect of the ,french revolution upon poets is a subject of especial interest to us1 because the period is so nearly identical with our own4 ,there were several ,english poets whose reactions to the great event it will pay us to consider4 ,samuel ,taylor ,coleridge was a clergyman's son1 born in #aggb1 so that he was twenty-one years old when ,king ,louis' head fell into the basket of the guillotine4 ,at that time ,coleridge was traveling about giving ,unitarian lectures1 a most revolutionary occupation4 ,he met another young enthusiast1 ,robert ,southey1 and they had a ,utopian dream of a free community on the banks of the ,susquehanna ,river4 ,it was to be called the ,pantisocracy1 and to get funds ,coleridge set out to canvass for his ,unitarian paper4 ,the dream ended when the two poets married sisters4 ,at the age of twenty-eight we find ,coleridge in the full tide of the reaction against ,france4 ,one of the organs of the ,tory party1 the ,london 8,morning ,post10 is paying him a salary to write articles clamoring for renewal of the war on the ,french republic2 it was said in ,parliament that the rupture of the peace was brought about by these articles4 ,for the balance of his days the one-time ,unitarian was a pillar of the ,anglican church1 and of every form of reaction4 ,he had become a devotee of ,german metaphysics1 also of opium2 a wanderer and a wreck1 living on charity1 and planning colossal literary labors which came to nothing4 ,he was sent to a nursing-home under the charge of a physician1 where he died at the age of sixty-two4 ,so much for the life2 and now for the poetry4 ,there are only a few hundred lines of it1 all written before the poet entered the ,tory service4 ,a study of it makes clear the spiritual tragedy2 it is poetry of emotion and music1 with a total absence of judgment and will4 ,from only one of the poems1 8,the ,ancient ,mariner10 can you extract a human meaning2 that if one man commits an act of cruelty against a bird1 the moral forces of the universe will punish a shipload of innocent men1 sparing only the one who is guilty6 ,it is the poetry of opium4 ,indeed1 the most famous of all the verses1 8,kubla ,khan10 was actually an opium dream1 transferred to paper after return to consciousness-- 8,now1 hold on a moment10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi4 8,here is a letter from a ,poet4 ,you are going to have a lot of them reading this book1 and wanting to pull your hair out2 so you might as well have it out with them now4 ,this ,poet names #8,kubla ,khan' as the perfect type of the #8pure' poem40 8,i know4 ,swinburne calls it1 #8for absolute melody and splendor the first poem in the language4' ,it happens that the first five lines sum up the whole2 so it will pay us to stop and analyze them1 take them apart1 syllable by syllable1 and see how the trick is done4 ,i quote the lines2 and in order to play fair with the poet1 shut your eyes and give yourself up to his spell4 ,if you have any feeling for beauty of words1 you will feel a chill running up and down your spine40 ,in ,xanadu did ,kubla ,khan ,a stately pleasure-dome decree3 ,where ,alph1 the sacred river1 ran ,through caverns measureless to man ,down to a sunless sea4 ,first of all1 note the meter2 every long syllable is naturally long1 and every short syllable is naturally short2 so the lines flow softly1 like running waves4 ,not merely are the rhymes perfect1 there are hidden rhymes scattered through the lines2 the ,xanadu and ,khan1 also the two u's in the first line1 and the two a's in the fourth line4 ,note the repetition of the consonant sounds4 ,the ,x in the first line is pronounced as ,k2 and we have seen shrewd business men in the ,united ,states collect many millions of dollars from the ,american people by the magic of the letter ,k three times repeated4 ,there are two d's in the second line1 four r's in the third1 two m's in the fourth1 two s's in the fifth4 ,there is not a single harsh sound in the entire five lines2 they have every musical charm that is possible to words4 ,so much for the sounds2 and now for the sense4 ,let us take it word by word1 and see what it tells us4 ,xanadu3 a place you never heard of1 therefore mysterious1 stimulating to the imagination2 taken in connection with ,kubla ,khan1 it suggests ,tartar despotism1 cruelty1 terror4 8,a stately pleasure-dome03 magnificence in the fashion of the ,arabian ,nights1 extravagance1 a free rein to desire4 ,the word 8decree0 reinforces this2 suggesting an ,oriental despot1 who follows his whims without restraint4 8,alph03 an unknown stream1 therefore mysterious4 8,the sacred river03 this reinforces the idea of despotism1 adding to our fear of earthly kings that of an all-powerful one in heaven4 8,caverns measureless to man03 again mystery1 and the fear which the unknown inspires4 8,sunless sea03 this clenches the impression2 for without the sun there can be no life1 and the picture is the last word in desolation4 ,the rest of the poem is in the same key4 ,we hear about 8ancestral voices prophesying war10 and a stream haunted 8by woman wailing for her demon lover40 ,we are told about 8an ,abyssinian maid10 8a damsel with a dulcimer10 etc4 ,note that everyone of these images appeals to reactionary emotions1 fear or sensuality2 ,by sensuality the reason is dragged from its throne2 while fear destroys all activity of the mind1 causing abasement and submission4 ,moreover--and here is the point essential to our argument--almost every image in this poem turns out on examination to be a lie4 ,there is no such place as ,xanadu2 and ,kubla ,khan has nothing to teach us but avoidance4 ,his pleasures were bloody and infamous1 and there was nothing 8stately0 about his 8pleasure-dome40 ,there never was a river ,alph1 and the sacredness of any river is a fiction of a priestly caste1 preying on the people4 ,there are no 8caverns measureless to man02 while as for a 8sunless sea10 a few arc-lights would solve the problem4 ,the 8woman wailing for her demon lover0 is a savage's nightmare2 while as for the 8,abyssinian maid10 she would have her teeth blackened and would stink of rancid palm oil4 ,from the beginning to the end1 the poem deals with things which are sensual1 cruel1 and fatal to hope4 ,these old fears and cravings are buried deep in our subconsciousness2 the poet touches them1 and they quiver inside us1 and we don't know what it means1 so we call it 8magic40 ,that is the favorite term of the art for art's sakers2 they don't know what this 8magic0 is1 and they don't want to know1 but the psychoanalyst tells them4 ,says ,mrs4 ,ogi3 8,our ,poet will be pained4 ,he lives by magic1 and you seek to destroy it60 ,says ,ogi3 8,there are emotions equally thrilling1 equally wonderful1 which are stirred by the discovery of new truth and the contemplation of progress4 ,what ,i am trying to do is to persuade the poets to use their brains and common sense1 and apply melody and beauty of sound to the good things of the future1 instead of to the evil things of the past40 8,give them a few illustrations10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi4 8,i will name eight things which have been in my daily newspapers during the past week1 any one of which is every bit as exciting1 every bit as provocative of ecstasy as #8,kubla ,khan4' 8,number ,one3 ,the air is full of music1 traveling half way round the earth4 ,number ,two3 ,aeroplanes are circling the earth for the first time in history4 ,number ,three3 ,a scientist has given his life in the effort to find a cure for cancer4 ,number ,four3 ,mars is coming nearer1 and we have a chance to learn how the canals are made1 and perhaps to get messages from a new race4 ,number ,five3 ,in a physics laboratory1 only two or three miles from our home1 men are taking the atom to pieces and preparing to extract its energy4 ,number ,six3 ,we are discovering how to take control of our subconscious minds and master our hidden life4 ,number ,seven3 ,a group of scientists in ,new ,york are exploring1 by means of laboratory tests1 the energies we call #8psychic4' ,number ,eight3 ,in every civilized country today the workers are organizing themselves to put an end to parasitism based upon class privilege4 8,here are eight themes for poets1 every one of which has the advantage of being real1 and not fading away upon analysis4 ,here are pleasure-domes that are truly 8stately10 rivers that are truly 8sacred10 caverns that are truly 8measureless to man40 ,these modern themes have only one drawback1 from the point of view of the poet2 they require him to think as well as to feel60 ,,chapter ,,lv ,,the ,,tory ,,whip ,another poet who was frightened out of his wits by the ,french revolution was ,robert ,southey4 ,but he took to respectability instead of to opium4 ,he was born in #aggd1 the son of a linen draper4 ,at the age of nineteen he was full of ,rousseau1 ,goethe1 and the 8infidelity0 of ,gibbon4 ,he was so keen for ,france that he wrote an epic about ,joan of ,arc2 also he planned the 8,pantisocracy0 with ,coleridge4 ,but then he married the other sister1 and was shocked by the ,terror2 a wealthy man gave him an annuity1 and he settled down to write long and romantic poems about princes and conquerors1 ,celtic1 ,mexican1 ,arab1 ,indian--stage properties from all over the world1 combined with standard ,british moralizing4 ,in less than ten years we find ,southey evolved into a pillar of reaction2 at the age of thirty-three he received a pension from the government1 and two years later he joined ,walter ,scott and ,gifford as the literary whips of the ,tory party4 ,they published the 8,quarterly ,review10 and we shall see before long what they did to ,byron1 ,shelley and ,keats4 ,at thirty-nine ,southey became the laureate1 and delivered the customary ,new ,year's ode in support of church and state2 a procedure his biographer defends by explaining that he 8was earning a provision for his girls40 ,it is of course a pleasant thing for a poet with many daughters to save up the purchase price of a husband for each2 but what about the cotton spinners1 whose ten-year-old daughters were working fourteen and sixteen hours a day in the mills1 with the ,tory squirarchy taxing the bread out of their mouths8 ,for centuries the literary jackals who served the ,british ruling classes had starved in garrets2 but now their services were beginning to be appreciated1 and they were admitted to the class they defended4 ,the diligent ,southey wrote a 8,naval ,biography10 a hymn of praise to ,britain's sea-lords1 and got five hundred pounds per volume for it1 and established himself as ,england's leading man of letters4 ,but alas1 there was a skeleton in his literary closet4 ,in his youth he had written a poem in praise of ,watt ,tyler1 proletarian rebel of old ,england2 and now someone got hold of the manuscript1 and published it secretly1 and ,southey's frantic efforts in the courts failed to stop it4 ,sixty thousand copies were sold1 and a member of ,parliament stood up and read extracts from it1 side by side with the laureate's latest article in the 8,quarterly ,review10 denouncing parliamentary reform4 ,to the respectability of ,southey's time this reading was an outrage1 but for my part1 it is the only reading of ,southey ,i ever enjoyed4 ,here was a scholar1 standing on his literary dignity--and what was his attitude to his fellow authors who had not sold out8 ,he clamored for ,hunt and ,hazlitt to be deported to a penal settlement2 while for ,byron he wanted 8the whip and the branding-iron06 ,we today know ,southey by his 8,life of ,nelson10 which serves as required reading in most ,american high schools4 ,we are told that this is because it is a great work of literature1 but the true reason is because it is a work of propaganda for the ,army and ,navy ,league4 ,if you want to study the art of hero-making1 note the biographer's deft handling of the ,lady ,hamilton episode of ,nelson's career4 ,this regulation movie 8vamp0 had married an ,english nobleman in his dotage2 and she got hold of ,nelson in ,naples1 where she was the favorite of an unspeakably corrupt court4 ,southey tells us there was nothing 8criminal0 in the hero's relationship to this lady2 which is the ,english way of stating that ,nelson did not commit adultery4 ,if this be true1 it is rather singular that ,nelson should have believed himself the father of ,lady ,hamilton's two children6 ,the queen of this ,neapolitan court was a sister of ,marie ,antoinette1 the ,french queen who had told the people to eat cake if they could not get bread2 and through ,lady ,hamilton's hold on ,nelson1 he was led to use the ,british fleet in furtherance of ,neapolitan royalist conspiracies1 and in defiance of orders from home4 ,but you don't find any of that in ,southey6 ,you are told that when ,nelson returned to ,england1 he 8separated from0 his wife2 the fact being that his wife left him because he insisted on bringing the 8vamp0 lady to live in the home with her6 ,in view of these details1 ,i asked ,americans to consider whether it would not be better for their children to read about the democratic ,english heroes1 such as ,john ,milton and ,oliver ,cromwell and ,isaac ,newton and ,john ,ruskin and ,keir ,hardie8 ,,chapter ,,lvi ,,the ,,fear ,,that ,,kills ,one more1 and we are done with the melancholy tale of the poets who ran away from the ,french revolution4 ,william ,wordsworth was born in #aggj1 his father being lawyer to a noble earl who robbed him of five thousand pounds4 ,that may possibly have accounted for some of the early rebellious emotions of the poet4 ,he was graduated from ,cambridge at the age of twenty-one1 and went to ,france at the height of the revolutionary fervor4 ,he has told us in his verse of the stirrings which then possessed him2 to be young at such a time 8was very heaven40 ,but the poet1 in telling us about his experiences in ,france1 left out a vital part thereof4 ,the story had to wait a century and a quarter before a professor of ,princeton ,university dug it out4 ,while ,wordsworth was abroad he carried on an affair with a young ,french girl of good family4 ,she bore him a daughter1 but he did not marry her2 instead1 he came back to ,england1 and lived most piously with his sister1 and became a preacher of the proprieties4 ,we can understand how1 looking back on ,france1 it seemed to him a land of license1 meriting stern rebuke from a ,british moralist4 ,his first book of poems1 8,lyrical ,ballads10 was published in #agih4 ,he had by then become a reactionary in religion and politics1 but in poetry he was an innovator1 because he dealt with the simple1 every-day feelings of his own heart1 and with the peasant people of his neighborhood4 ,he was mercilessly ridiculed by the critics1 and retired into himself1 to live a frugal life upon an income of a hundred pounds a year1 bequeathed to him by a well-to-do friend4 ,in the course of time the ,british ruling class realized that there was no real harm in this nature-mystic1 and at the age of forty-three he received a salary as a distributor of stamps2 nine years later an annuity was allowed him1 and a year after that he became poet laureate4 ,he passionately opposed every political reform1 and composed a series of 8,ecclesiastical ,sonnets10 dealing with the church rigmarole of ,england2 also a pamphlet bitterly attacking the proposition to run a railroad into the country of his dreams4 ,at the age of seventy-five we find him1 white-haired and venerable1 kneeling1 in the presence of a large assembly1 to kiss the hand of an extremely dull young girl by the name of ,victoria4 ,wordsworth was one of the teachers of my youth1 and ,i do not want to be unjust to him because he turned ,tory before thirty4 ,what we have to do is to understand him1 and to draw a moral from him4 ,the worship of ,nature is like the worship of ,god2 as a rule it is a reactionary influence1 cutting one off from real life2 but here and there it may be a source of inner energy1 enabling a man to stand for his own convictions against the world4 ,to ,wordsworth in his early days ,nature was that1 and no poet has uttered in more noble and beautiful language this sense of oneness with the great mother of all life4 ,his writing at its best is as beautiful1 and also as sound1 as anything in ,english4 ,but here is the point to get clear3 practically all this poetry was written in eight years2 you might count on your ten fingers and ten toes all the lines that ,wordsworth wrote after the age of thirty-five which are worth anyone's while to read4 ,in my youth1 when ,i was studying poetry1 it was my habit to go through a poet1 beginning with the first page of volume one and ending with the last page of volume five1 or ten1 or whatever it might be4 ,in the case of ,wordsworth1 it was volume twelve1 and he was the one poet with whom ,i fell down4 ,the 8,ecclesiastical ,sonnets0 finished me2 ,i testify that of all the dreary drivel in the world's literature1 this carries the prize4 ,there were two men in ,wordsworth3 the instinctive man1 who experienced overwhelming feelings1 and the conscious man1 who was terrified by those feelings4 ,this is no guess of mine1 but something which ,wordsworth himself explained over and over again3 8,my apprehensions come in crowds4444 ,my former thoughts returned3 the fear that kills4444 ,me this unchartered freedom tires2 ,i feel the weight of chance desires40 ,so the ,wordsworth who believed in the ,tory party and the ,thirty-nine ,articles put the screws on the poet1 and not merely the emotions1 but the brains of a great genius withered before the age of forty4 ,the cases of ,coleridge1 ,southey and ,wordsworth suggest the inquiry3 is it possible for a great poet to be a conservative8 ,in old times1 yes2 for the conservatives then had something to say for themselves4 ,but in the last hundred years the meaning of the class struggle has become so apparent1 the consequences of class exploitation have become so obvious1 that a man who fails to see them must be deficient in intelligence1 a man who fails to care about them must be deficient in heart and conscience2 and these are things without which great poetry cannot be made4 ,,chapter ,,lvii ,,the ,,first ,,lord ,,of ,,letters ,fortunately not all the poets of ,england let themselves be frightened into reaction by the ,french revolution4 ,george ,gordon1 ,lord ,byron1 was born in #aghh4 ,his father was a rake and blackguard4 8,your mother is a fool10 said a schoolmate2 and ,byron answered1 8,i know it40 ,this1 you must admit1 was a poor start in life for a boy4 ,he had a club foot1 concerning which he was frightfully sensitive2 but in other ways he was divinely handsome1 and much sought after by the ladies2 so he alternated between fits of solitude and melancholy1 and other fits of amorous excess4 ,being a lord1 he was a great person all his life4 ,being a man of genius1 he enormously increased his greatness4 ,he lived always before the world1 in one sublime pose or another1 and composed whole epics about himself and his moods4 ,he traveled1 and became a cosmopolitan figure1 and wild tales were spread concerning his adventures in ,europe4 ,then he came back to ,england1 and published a poem1 8,childe ,harold's ,pilgrimage10 which made such a sensation as ,britain had never known before4 8,i awoke one morning and found myself famous10 he said4 ,but he affected to despise this fame2 he1 a noble lord1 must not be confused with vulgar writing fellows4 ,he would toss a manuscript to his publishers with a careless gesture--though the manuscript might be worth one or two thousand pounds4 ,i cannot recall any high-up aristocrat who achieved literary greatness to compare with ,byron2 he was the first lord of letters of that age and of all ages4 ,he composed a series of verse romances1 tales of ,eastern despots and their crimes1 in the fashion of the day4 ,they were full of melody and rhythm1 and their heroes were always that melancholy1 sublime1 outlaw figure which we known as 8,byronic40 ,this autobiographic hero was eagerly taken up by the fashionable world1 especially the female part4 ,one great lady1 already supplied with a husband1 adored the poet wildly1 then despised him1 threatened to kill him1 attacked him in a novel1 and finally1 when she met his funeral cortege in the street1 fainted and went insane4 ,he married an heiress1 quite cynically for her money1 spent the money1 and had everything he owned attached by his creditors4 ,then his wife left him1 with hints of mysterious wickedness4 ,he was overwhelmed by a storm of abuse1 and went into exile for the rest of his life4 ,the wife never told her story1 but many years later the ,american novelist1 ,harriet ,beecher ,stowe1 published what she claimed was the truth1 that ,byron had been guilty of incest with his half-sister4 ,his lordship had by that time become a 8standard author10 and the critics were outraged by ,mrs4 ,stowe's indiscretion2 even now they do not speak out loud about the matter4 ,in ,switzerland the poet met ,shelley1 the best influence that ever came into his life4 ,he recognized this new friend as the purest soul he knew1 and praised his character ardently in his letters1 though he never paid the public tribute to ,shelley's writings which they deserved4 ,shelley turned ,byron's thoughts to politics1 and he wrote 8,the ,prisoner of ,chillon10 one of the noblest of his poems4 ,but then he went off to ,venice1 and amused himself with numerous intrigues1 and got fat4 ,he began 8,don ,juan10 a new kind of epic poem1 mocking itself1 as well as everything else4 ,it is a hateful picture of a hateful world1 but it has almost infinite verve and energy1 and we recognize in it a great spirit trying to lift itself above an age of corruption by the instrument of scorn4 ,it was the time of the 8,holy ,alliance10 and the few men who cared for freedom were living in exile or hiding from the police4 ,byron associated with these revolutionists1 and gave them both money and his name4 ,he became a neighbor of ,shelley's1 and again immersed himself in politics and literature4 ,he wrote his drama 8,cain10 in which he deals with the problems of human fate from the revolutionary point of view4 ,to the religionists of the time1 this was most awful blasphemy2 the poet ,southey frothed at the mouth1 and wrote his 8,vision of ,judgment10 portraying the damnation of ,byron4 ,his angry lordship came back with a poem of the same name--so effective that the publisher was jailed for six months6 ,one stanza1 describing the poet laureate1 will serve for a sample of ,byron's fighting mood3 ,he had written praises of a regicide2 ,he had written praises of all kings whatever2 ,he had written for republics far and wide1 ,and then against them bitterer than ever3 ,for pantisocracy he once had cried ,aloud1 a scheme less moral than 'twas clever2 ,then grew a hearty anti-jacobin-- ,had turned his coat--and would have turned his skin4 ,byron had now become the voice of liberty against reaction throughout ,europe4 ,and this was a brand new thing1 seeming a kind of insanity to the ,tories4 ,there had been an abundance of dissipated lords1 but never before a lord of revolt6 ,byron joined the secret society of the ,carbonari1 and took part in their attempt to free ,italy4 ,when they failed1 he was not discouraged1 but wrote3 8,there will be blood shed like water1 and tears like mist2 but the peoples will conquer in the end40 ,in those words we know the voice of a thinker and a man4 ,he was now thirty-five years of age1 restless1 tormented by a sense of futility4 ,the ,greek people were carrying on a war for liberation against the ,turks1 and ,byron went to help them1 and thus set a crown upon his life4 ,he died of a fever1 early in the campaign2 and so today1 when we think of him1 we think not merely of a nobleman and a poet1 but of a man who laid down wealth and fame and worldly position for the greatest of all human ideals4 ,in the beginning he had written to amuse himself and his readers2 he had catered to their sentimentalism and their folly4 ,but in the end he came to despise his readers1 and wrote only to shock them4 ,they had made a world of lies2 and one man would tell them the truth4 ,that is why today we rank him as a world force in the history of letters4 ,we are no longer the least bit thrilled by his wickedness2 we think of such things as pathological and are moved only to pity4 ,we do not see anything picturesque about a great lord who travels over ,europe with a train of horses and carriages1 dogs1 fowls1 monkeys1 servants1 and mistresses2 the ,sunday supplements of our newspapers have over-supplied us with such material4 ,but we are interested in a poet who possessed a clear eye and a clear brain1 who saw the truth1 and spoke it to all ,europe1 and helped to set free the future of the race4 ,,chapter ,,lviii ,,the ,,angel ,,of ,,revolt ,percy ,bysshe ,shelley was born in #agib1 which made him four years younger than ,byron4 ,his father was the richest baronet in the county of ,sussex1 a great landlord and a ferocious ,tory1 who typified the spirit of his age and drove his son almost to madness4 ,the boy was sent to school at ,eton1 a dreadful place inhabited by gnomes who wear all day the clothes which our little rich boys wear to evening parties1 and the hats which our grown-up rich boys wear to the opera4 ,they had a system of child slavery known as 8fagging10 and ,shelley revolted against it and was tortured4 ,he was a swift1 proud spirit1 made frantic by the sight or even the thought of tyranny2 so sensitive that he swooned at the scent of the flowers in the ,alpine valleys4 ,he was gifted with a marvelous mind1 ravenous for knowledge1 and absorbing it at incredible speed4 ,he went to ,oxford1 where at the age of nineteen he published a pamphlet entitled1 8,the ,necessity for ,atheism40 ,a reading discloses that the title might better have been 8,the ,necessity for ,abolishing ,ecclesiasticism ,masquerading as ,christianity40 ,but it is not likely that such a change of title would have helped ,shelley1 who was unceremoniously kicked out of the university1 and cast off by the ,tory baronet who controlled his purse-strings4 ,so we find him1 an outcast in ,london1 living in lodgings and almost starving4 ,he met a girl of sixteen1 the daughter of a coffee-house proprietor1 and hoping to convert her to his sublime faith1 he ran away and married her4 ,at the age of twenty we find him in ,ireland1 issuing an 8,address to the ,irish ,people0 and circulating it on the streets4 ,the scholarly critics of ,shelley speak of this as the absurd extravagance of boyhood2 whereas it was plain common sense and the obvious moral duty of every ,english poet4 ,infinitely touching it is to read this pamphlet1 and note its beauty of spirit and sublimity of faith1 not exceeded by the utterances of ,jesus4 ,all that was wrong with ,shelley's advice was that it was too good both for ,ireland and ,england4 ,for distributing it ,shelley's servant was sent to jail for six months4 ,the poet's wife had no understanding of his ideals1 and the couple were unhappy4 ,after two years of married life1 ,shelley met the sixteen-year-old daughter of ,godwin1 revolutionary philosopher1 and ran away with her4 ,that was the crime of his life1 for which he was condemned to infamy by his own time1 and has hardly yet been pardoned4 ,two years later his former wife drowned herself2 and the ,british lord chancellor deprived the poet of the custody of their two children1 on the ground that he was an unfit person4 ,we shall discuss the ethics of this affair later on4 ,suffice it for the moment to say that ,shelley1 broken in heart but not in will1 fled to the ,continent for refuge1 and devoted the last four years of his life to the task of overthrowing the ,british caste system4 ,a hundred years have passed1 and he has not yet succeeded2 but let no one be too sure that he will not succeed in the end6 ,he lived in ,switzerland and ,italy1 and worked with desperate intensity1 so that he brought on tuberculosis4 ,there are no four years in the life of any other writer which gave us such treasures of the mind and spirit4 ,the critics of ,shelley judge him by his boyhood and his horrible scandal4 ,but taking these last years1 the impression we get is of maturity of mind1 dignity of spirit1 firmness of judgment4 ,if you want to know this ,shelley1 read the wonderful letters he wrote from ,switzerland4 ,read his essay1 recently discovered and published1 8,a ,philosophical ,view of ,reform10 in which the whole program of radical propaganda is laid out with perfect insight and beauty of utterance4 ,read 8,the ,defense of ,poetry10 one of the finest pieces of eloquence in ,english4 ,note the soundness of his critical judgment1 which erred in only one respect--an under-estimate of his own powers4 ,he was humble to ,byron1 a lesser person both as poet and as man4 ,one after another ,shelley now poured out the marvelous works on which his fame is based4 ,he took the old myth of ,aeschylus and wrote a drama1 8,prometheus ,unbound10 which might be described as the distilled essence of revolt1 the most modern of philosophical dramas1 proclaiming the defiance of the human spirit to all ordained gods4 ,at the other extreme1 and written in the same year1 was 8,the ,cenci10 a tragic story out of ,renaissance ,italy1 human and simple1 therefore poignant and real4 ,the poet ,keats died1 and ,shelley wrote 8,adonais0--and those who think that art exists for art's sake and beauty for beauty's sake1 make note that here is a work which combines all the perfections of poetry1 and yet has a moral1 a fighting message4 ,he wrote also political comedies in the style of ,aristophanes--representing ,english society by an ecstatic chorus of pigs4 ,so savage is this lashing that even today ,english critics keep silence about 8,swellfoot the ,tyrant40 ,the odious fat lecher1 ,king ,george ,,iv1 was sued for divorce by his wife1 ,queen ,caroline1 and it was a most horrible scandal1 which ,britain hardly dared to whisper4 ,i remember when ,i was a student in college1 twenty-five years ago1 searching the libraries in an effort to find out the contents of the 8,green ,bag0 which figures in ,shelley's drama2 but no commentator would tell me--and ,i don't know yet6 ,shelley has the qualities of sublimity and fervor2 also he has the defects of these qualities--he is often windy and wordy and unreal4 ,but in his last miraculous years he shed these faults1 and produced lyrics of such loveliness that he is today the poet of poets1 the soul companion of generous and idealistic youth4 ,in his 8,mask of ,anarchy0 are songs of revolt which have reached the workers--and which therefore ,english critics still find it necessary to deprecate6 ,a couple of years ago was celebrated in ,london the anniversary of ,shelley's death1 and there assembled a great number of people of the sort who would have skinned him while he was alive4 ,a famous editor1 ,mr4 ,j4 ,c4 ,squires1 took occasion to quote the poem3 8,men of ,england1 wherefore plow80 ,how obviously foolish6 ,if the men of ,england did not plow1 they would starve6 ,but it just happens that ,shelley did not say that2 what he said was3 8,men of ,england1 wherefore plow for the lords who lay ye low80 ,and five million1 five hundred thousand labor votes echo3 8,wherefore80 ,this poet of the future was scorned in his lifetime1 as no other great ,englishman in history4 ,he was the byword of the literary wits of ,london2 8,prometheus ,unbound10 they said1 an excellent name3 who would bind it8 ,by ,sir ,walter ,scott and his ruffians of the ,tory 8,review10 ,shelley's name could not be spoken without crossing yourself4 ,the poet ,moore cried out in horror--,tommy1 little snob of the drawing-rooms1 who 8dearly loved a lord40 ,and ,wordsworth1 ignorant and bigoted1 living among his peasants1 reading nothing2 and ,southey1 turncoat and prig4 ,even ,byron made no fight for ,shelley's fame2 while ,byron's friends1 the fashionable idlers of the ,continent1 rebuked him for keeping such disreputable company4 ,even two generations later the evil spell was not broken4 ,matthew ,arnold1 standard ,english critic1 read about ,shelley's friends1 and lifted his scholarly hands and cried3 8,what a set60 ,it did not occur to the critic to ask what other kind of set ,shelley might have had4 ,what people had he to choose among8 ,arnold had not tried being a radical1 so as to see what queer people swarm about you--especially when you are known to have an income of four thousand pounds a year1 and to give away nearly all of it6 ,a poet who believes everything good about his fellows1 and who lives in dreams of exalted nobleness1 is the last person in the world to discover the faults of those who gather about him4 ,and after he has made the discovery1 he remains a dreamer2 instead of casting them off1 in the fashion of the good1 respectable world1 he clings to them1 trying to help them1 often in spite of themselves4 ,shelley believed in 8free love10 and tried out his theories2 and that horrified ,matthew ,arnold1 who said after reading the record1 8,one feels sickened forever of the subject of irregular relationships40 ,quite so2 ,i also have seen people try out this theory1 and have felt sickened4 ,but consider the question1 in which way will the race more quickly acquire knowledge as to the rights and wrongs of sex--if men say honestly what they believe1 and tell frankly what they do1 or if they preach one code and practice another1 and hide their sins in a dark corner8 ,shelley followed the former course2 he was young1 and knew no older person who understood him and could give him wise advice4 ,he believed that if your heart was full of generosity and kindness and unselfishness and a burning sense of justice1 you could trust your desires1 even those of love4 ,he tried it1 and filled his life with pain and tragedy4 ,and seventy or eighty years later comes an eminent and well-established critic1 and in solemn tones protests that it is a crime against good taste to give us these facts6 ,let poets follow the plan of ,wordsworth1 who sowed his one wild oat in a foreign land1 and put a heavy stone of silence over the crop1 and became a ,tory laureate and pillar of ,churchianity6 ,in the course of a hundred years we have got all the details of ,shelley's two marriages2 we know that when he eloped with ,harriet ,westbrook1 his first wife1 he told her his ideas on the subject of love4 ,she professed to agree with him2 but1 of course1 being a sixteen-year-old child1 that meant nothing4 ,she was ignorant1 and in no way fitted to be the life companion of a great poet4 ,when ,shelley left her he took care of her and the two children2 her suicide two years later was caused by the fact that she had an unhappy love affair with another man1 and was with child by this man4 ,here is a problem which will not be solved in our time1 nor for a long time to come3 what is to be done when two people have loved1 and one ceases to love while the other goes on loving8 ,for the present1 our only task is to get straight the facts about ,shelley's case2 the central fact being that he was damned for holding a revolutionary opinion and acting on it4 ,if all he had wanted was to indulge his passions and keep out of trouble1 the way was clear before him2 the old ,tory baronet1 his father1 had explained with brutal frankness that he would never pardon a marriage with a woman below ,shelley's rank in life1 but he was willing to assume responsibility for the support of any number of illegitimate children the poet might wish to bring into existence4 ,such was the moral code against which ,shelley revolted2 such was the world in which he tried to live according to the principles of justice1 freedom and love4 ,he died at the age of thirty1 drowned in a storm while sailing a boat2 and with him perished the finest mind the ,english race had produced4 ,i make this statement deliberately1 knowing the ridicule it will excite2 but ,i ask you1 before you decide3 take the men of genius of ,england one by one1 wipe out their lives after the age of thirty1 and see what you have left4 ,will you take ,shakespeare8 ,you will know him as the author of 8,venus and ,adonis0 and 8,the ,rape of ,lucrece0 and 8,love's ,labor ,lost0 and 8,the ,comedy of ,errors10 and possibly 8,richard ,,iii0 and some sonnets4 ,will you take ,milton1 with 8,l',allegro0 and 8,il ,penseroso0 and 8,comus0 and 8,lycidas10 and nothing else8 ,will you go to the ,continent1 and take ,goethe1 who outlived ,shelley8 ,what would you think of ,goethe if you had only 8,goetz0 and 8,werther0 and a few lyric poems8 ,shelley was one among the sons of ,rousseau who did not falter and turn back to feudalism1 ,catholicism1 or mysticism of any sort4 ,he fixed his eyes upon the future1 and never wavered for a moment4 ,he attacked class privilege1 not merely political1 but industrial2 and so he is the coming poet of labor4 ,some day1 and that not so far off1 the strongholds of class greed in ,britain will be stormed1 and when the liberated workers take up the task of making a new culture1 they will learn that there was one inspired saint in their history who visioned that glad day1 and gave up everything in life to bring it nearer4 ,they will honor ,shelley by making him their poet-laureate1 and hailing him as the supreme glory of ,english letters4 ,,chapter ,,lix ,,the ,,stable-,,keeper',s ,,son ,there is one more poet of this period with whom we must deal1 and that is ,john ,keats4 8,and now you are going to have your hands full10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi4 8,everyone is quite sure that ,keats is one poet who cannot possibly be accused of propaganda40 8,yes10 says her husband2 8an amusing illustration of the extent to which leisure-class criticism is able to take the guts out of art4 ,here is a man whose life and personality constitute one of the greatest pieces of radical propaganda in the history of ,english literature40 8,at least the issue is fairly joined10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi4 8,go to it60 ,let us first take the life and personality1 and afterwards the writings4 ,john ,keats was the son of a stable-keeper2 and if you don't know what that meant to ,british snobbery there is no way ,i can convey it to you4 ,he did not attend a public school or a university2 he did not learn to walk and talk like an ,english gentleman4 ,he was a simple1 crude fellow--a little chap not much over five feet high--and his social experiences early taught him the lesson of extreme reserve2 he held himself aloof from everyone who might by any possibility spurn him because of his low estate4 ,even with ,shelley he would not forget that he was dealing with the son of a baronet2 everyone who surrounded ,shelley was trying to get money from him1 and so ,keats despised them and stayed apart4 8,he was of the skeptical1 republican school10 wrote one of his boyhood intimates4 8,a fault finder with everything established40 ,and the first poem which he got up the courage to show was a sonnet upon the release of ,leigh ,hunt1 who had been sent to prison for two years for writing an article denouncing the prince regent4 ,this poem was published in ,hunt's paper1 the 8,examiner10 and the notorious editor became the friend and champion of this twenty-year-old poet4 ,meantime ,keats had been apprenticed to a surgeon1 and became a dresser in a hospital4 ,he was called an apothecary's apprentice2 and so when he published 8,endymion10 the ruling-class critics of the day fell upon him4 ,the insolence of a low-bred fellow1 imagining that he could write a poem dealing with ,greek mythology1 the field above all others reserved to university culture6 8,back to your shop1 ,john10 cried the 8,quarterly ,review10 8back to plasters1 pills and ointment boxes60 ,you see1 it was not a literary issue at all2 it was a political and social issue4 ,in 8,blackwood's0 appeared a ferocious article1 denouncing not merely ,keats1 but the whole 8cockney school10 as it was called2 this including ,leigh ,hunt1 ,hazlitt1 ,lamb1 ,shelley and ,keats4 8,cockney0 is the word by which the cultured gentry of ,england describe the vulgar populace of ,london1 who drop their h's and talk about their 8dyly pyper40 ,the ,tory reviewers were only incidentally men of letters2 they were young country squires amusing themselves with radical-baiting1 they were 8athletes1 outdoor men1 sportsmen1 salmon-fishers1 deer-stalkers40 ,they gathered at ,ambrose's and drank strong ,scotch whiskey1 and sang a rollicking song of which the chorus ran3 8,curse the people1 blast the people1 damn the lower orders40 ,and when they attacked the 8,cockney0 poets1 it was not merely because of their verses1 but because of their clothing and their faces and even their complexions4 8,pimply ,hazlitt0 was their phrase for the greatest essayist of their time2 they alleged that both ,hazlitt and ,lamb drank gin--and gin was the drink for washerwomen4 ,keats wrote 8,endymion0 at the age of twenty-one1 and two years later he suffered a hemorrhage1 which meant the permanent breaking of his health4 ,he wrote his last lines at the age of twenty-four1 and died early in his twenty-fifth year4 ,so you see he had not long to win his way against these aristocratic rowdies4 ,he was poor1 and exquisitely sensitive2 he suffered under such brutal attacks1 but he went on1 and did the best work he could1 and said1 very quietly3 8,i think ,i shall be among the ,english poets after my death40 ,he realized the dignity of his calling1 and in his letters made clear that he did not take the ivory tower attitude toward his art4 8,i am ambitious of doing the world some good10 he wrote2 8if ,i should be spared1 that may be the work of future years40 ,and in the course of his constant self-criticism and groping after new methods and new powers1 he traveled far from the naive sensuousness of his early poems4 ,his last work was a kind of prologue to 8,hyperion10 in which he discussed the poet and his function1 and laid down the law that only those can climb to the higher altar of art to whom the miseries of the world ,are misery and will not let them rest4 ,how ,keats felt on the subject of the class struggle was startlingly indicated in the last days of his life4 ,dying of consumption1 he took a sea voyage to ,italy1 a journey which was a frightful strain upon him4 ,he landed in ,naples2 and ,naples1 as we know1 is warm and beautiful1 a place for a poet to rest and dream in4 ,but ,keats would not dream2 he smelt the foul atmosphere of royalist intrigue and tyranny1 and would not stay4 ,a friend took him to the theater1 and he saw a gendarme standing on either side of the stage1 and took that for a symbol of censorship and despotism1 and would not sit out the performance6 ,he died in ,rome1 and after his death ,shelley wrote 8,adonais10 a eulogy of ,keats and an attack on his detractors4 ,little by little his fame began to spread1 and everywhere it was recognized by the ,tories as part of the class struggle of the time4 ,sir ,walter ,scott had been pained by the personal venom of ,lockhart's attack in 8,blackwood's02 but not enough to cause him to withdraw his subsidy from the magazine1 nor to prevent his accepting ,lockhart as his son-in-law and future biographer4 ,a young ,englishman of radical sympathies defended ,keats1 and a friend of ,lockhart's intervened in the argument1 and forced a duel with ,keats' defender1 and killed him4 ,that is the way literary questions were settled in those days6 ,when you fight for the fame of ,keats you are asserting the idea that genius is not a privilege of rank and wealth1 but that the precious fire smoulders also among the masses of the people1 so that a stable-keeper's son1 self-taught1 may become one of his country's greatest poets4 ,some critics would accept that doctrine now2 but not all1 it would appear4 ,here is ,henry ,a4 ,beers1 eminent scholar and professor of ,english literature in ,yale ,university1 writing in the ,yale 8,review10 and saying3 8,there was something a little underbred about ,hazlitt and ,leigh ,hunt1 and even perhaps about ,keats40 ,so much for the man2 now for the poetry4 ,the first thing to be got clear is that it is young poetry2 it was all written before the age of twenty-four4 ,an ignorant boy1 brought up in uncultured surroundings1 gropes his way out into the beauty and splendor of art4 ,he is enraptured1 quivering with delight2 nature to him is a perpetual ecstasy1 and words are jewels out of which he makes ravishment for the senses4 ,he has a marvelous gift of language1 splendor like a flood of moonlight flung out upon a mountain lake4 ,he is in love1 first with nature1 then with a young lady of eighteen1 whom he describes by the adjectives 8stylish0 and 8ignorant02 nevertheless1 he falls under her spell1 and after he is dead the young lady says that the kindest thing people can do for him is to forget him4 ,so little does a great poet's dream of feminine loveliness understand his true character and greatness6 ,we may be sure that if ,keats had lived to marry ,fanny ,brawne he would not have been happy1 and would have realized only too quickly that love is not merely a thrill of young sensibility1 a rapturous 8,dream of ,st4 ,agnes10 but a grave problem requiring for its solution both reason and conscience4 ,the early poetry of ,keats represents that stage of simple1 instinctive1 unreflecting delight which we call by the name 8,greek40 ,he chose ,greek themes and ,greek imagery1 and was never more ,greek than when he tried to be medieval4 ,but the most significant thing about his work is the quick maturing of it1 even in those scant four years4 ,a shadow of pain darkens his being1 the pangs of frustrated love wring cries of anguish from him2 and so we come to the second stage of the ,greek spirit--the sense of fate1 of cruelty hidden at the heart of life1 the terror and despair of loveliness that knows it is doomed4 ,out of this mood came his greatest poems1 the 8,ode on a ,grecian ,urn10 the 8,ode to a ,nightingale10 the 8,ode to ,melancholy40 ,if anyone denies that this poet is trying to teach us something about life1 if anyone thinks there is no message in this infinite mournfulness1 he has indeed a feeble apprehension4 ,but let us1 for the sake of argument1 assume with the art for art's sakers that ,keats was an esthete1 and produced 8pure beauty10 unalloyed by any preaching4 ,would that mean that we had found some art which is not propaganda8 ,assuredly not2 and those who besiege us with contentious examples--,keats1 ,gautier1 ,whistler1 ,hearn1 etc4--simply show that they have not understood what we mean by the thesis that all art is propaganda4 ,it is that1 fundamentally1 as an inescapable psychological fact2 and it does not cease to be that just because the artist preaches enjoyment instead of effort4 ,use your common sense upon the proposition4 ,when an artist takes the trouble to embody his emotions in an art form1 he does so because he wishes to convey those emotions to other people2 and insofar as he succeeds in doing that1 he will change the emotions of the other people1 and change their attitudes toward life and hence their actions4 ,is it not just as much 8teaching0 to proclaim the supremacy of the sensuous delights1 as to proclaim the supremacy of reason1 or of any system of reasoned thought8 ,when an artist composes a song on the theme1 8,let us eat1 drink and be merry10 is he not setting forth a doctrine of life8 ,if not1 why does he not go ahead and eat1 drink and be merry8 ,why does he trouble to give advice to you and me8 ,when ,keats writes1 8,a thing of beauty is a joy forever10 it is perfectly plain that he is making propaganda--and false propaganda1 since standards of beauty are matters of fashion1 varying with every social change4 ,he is making propaganda when he declares that 8,beauty is truth1 truth beauty0--that is all ,ye know on earth1 and all ye need to know4 ,incidentally he is revealing to us that he has done very little thinking about either truth or beauty1 but is content to use abstract words without meaning behind them4 ,i have made clear1 ,i hope1 that ,i consider the art of ,keats an exquisitely beautiful art1 fine and clean1 and a perfectly proper art for any lad to produce between the ages of twenty and twenty-four4 ,there is a stage of nave trust in instinct through which youth passes1 especially poetical youth4 ,but when this stage is continued into maturity then it becomes something entirely different1 neither fine1 nor clean1 nor beautiful2 it becomes stale self-indulgence1 empty-minded irresolution1 dawdling decadence4 ,all those things manifested themselves in the later periods of ,greek art1 and they may be observed in our own period of the breakdown of capitalism4 ,the ,tory party came in the end to realize that there was nothing really dangerous in the poetry of this unhappy boy4 ,wise old ,tories like ,sir ,walter ,scott had known it from the beginning1 and young ,tories like ,tennyson and ,rossetti proclaimed it4 ,keats himself was no longer alive to offend them with his ,cockney manners1 so they took up his writings1 and made them a bulwark of leisure-class culture in a stage of arrested mentality1 a resource of critics who wish to keep the young from thinking about dangerous modern questions4 ,but ,i venture the opinion that if this ,cockney stable-keeper's son had grown to manhood1 he would have taken care of his own destiny1 and seen to it that dilettanti idlers and aesthetic decadents should find no comfort in his name and example4 ,his letters give abundant evidence of his capable mind1 and assure us that if he had been blessed with health he would have matured into a thinker1 even as ,john ,milton1 the great companion of his later days4 ,how much the lip-servers of ,keats really understand him1 was proven by a peculiar incident which befell me in my own youth4 ,twenty-two years ago ,i published 8,the ,journal of ,arthur ,stirling10 a passionate defense of the right of young poets to survive2 and of course ,i sang enraptured praise of ,keats1 and made him a text for excited tirades4 ,at that time there was a newspaper in ,new ,york called the 8,evening ,telegram10 owned by ,james ,gordon ,bennett1 a dissipated rowdy who might have been a blood brother to the ,tory crowd which conducted 8,blackwood's0 and the 8,quarterly0 a hundred years ago4 ,this 8,evening ,telegram0 published a page of book reviews every ,saturday1 boasting it the most widely circulated book page in the ,united ,states4 ,its opinion1 therefore1 was of importance to a young writer hoping to live by his pen4 ,it reviewed 8,the ,journal of ,arthur ,stirling10 saying that we might have sympathized with the struggles of an unfortunate poet1 had he not committed the indiscretion of giving us samples of his writings1 which enabled us to be certain that he had no idea whatever of poetry4 ,for example1 said the editor1 here was one of ,arthur ,stirling's effusions4 ,read it3 ,sit thee by the ingle1 when ,the sear faggot blazes bright1 ,spirit of a winter's night6-- ,sit thee there1 and send abroad ,with a mind self-overaw'd ,fancy1 high-commission'd2--send her6 ,she has vassals to attend her2 ,she will bring1 in spite of frost1 ,beauties that the earth hath lost2 ,she will bring thee1 all together1 ,all delights of summer weather2 ,all the buds and bells of ,may ,from dewy sward or thorny spray2 ,all the heapd ,autumn's wealth1 ,with a still1 mysterious stealth2 ,she will mix these pleasures up1 ,like three fit wines in a cup1 ,and thou shalt quaff it6-- ,poor ,arthur ,stirling was supposed to be dead1 so ,i asked a friend to write to the editor of the 8,evening ,telegram0 and point out to him that he had misunderstood the book2 the lines quoted were not submitted as the work of ,arthur ,stirling1 they happened to be the work of ,john ,keats6 ,the editor published this reply with an easygoing comment2 it made a good joke1 he said1 but as a matter of fact he was justified in his criticism1 because the lines belonged to the very early work of ,keats1 which was practically without poetic merit4 ,my friend wrote again1 expressing surprise that the editor should make such a statement2 for this poem1 entitled 8,fancy10 belonged to the last two years of ,keats' life1 the wonderful years which produced all his greatest writings4 ,palgrave1 whose authority none would dispute1 had included it in the 8,golden ,treasury10 which contained only thirteen poems by ,keats4 ,the editor of the 8,evening ,telegram0 was unable to find space for that letter6 ,,chapter ,,lx ,,the ,,predatory ,,artist ,says ,mrs4 ,ogi3 8,here is ,haldeman-,julius1 discussing the thesis of your book4 ,he says3 #8,you may say that because ,balzac drew his characters largely from the bourgeoisie he was conducting a subtle propaganda in behalf of a class2 or1 in general1 that he was a bourgeois author4 ,but such a view would be a travesty of literary criticism4'0 ,says ,ogi3 8,that is what a great many people are going to call this book4 ,but let us see what we can make of ,balzac40 ,at this point the mail arrives1 and in it a letter to ,mrs4 ,ogi1 telling some bad news about a friend4 ,a look of deep distress comes upon her face1 and ,ogi1 watching her1 is suddenly inspired4 8,hold that expression60 he cries4 8,what do you mean80 falters ,mrs4 ,ogi4 8,it's what ,i need for a story6 ,i want to get all the details of it--the trembling of your lips1 the look in your eyes4 ,hold it now6 ,it is copy60 8,i think you are out of your mind10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi2 and her face assumes a quite different expression4 ,says her husband3 8,i am the artist1 and ,i feed on life4 ,my fellow humans suffer1 and a voice within me cries3 #8,magnificent6' ,anguish writes itself upon their features1 and ,i whisper3 #8,there is a great moment6' ,they are utterly abased1 and ,i think3 #8,here is my chance of immortality6'0 ,says ,mrs4 ,ogi3 8,you are a monster6 ,i have always known it40 8,i am one among thousands of monsters1 ranging the earth1 competing furiously for their prey4 ,i explore the whole field of human experience2 ,i climb the mountain peaks1 ,i ransack the starry spaces1 ,i rummage the dust-bins of history1 collecting great significant moments1 climaxes of emotion1 drama1 suspense1 thrill2 when ,i find it1 ,i slap my knee1 like ,thackeray writing the scene of ,becky ,sharp caught in adultery1 and exclaiming3 #8,there is a stroke of genius6' ,i see tears falling1 and ,i think3 #8,that will sell6' ,out of that cry of despair ,i shall make a feast6 ,from this tale of tragedy ,i shall build a new house6 ,upon this heap of anguish ,i shall leap to fame6 ,i shall enlarge my ego1 expand in the admiration of my fellow-men1 enjoying dominion over their emotions and their thoughts4 ,also1 of course1 ,i shall not forget my fellow-women1 their thrills and ecstasies2 ,i shall have gorgeous apartments1 furnished with barbaric splendor1 to which will come brilliant and fascinating admirers--0 ,says ,mrs4 ,ogi3 8,is this a dream you want me to psychoanalyze80 8,no10 says her husband1 8it is simply the soul of ,balzac which ,i am putting before you3 the most perfect type of the predatory artist that has existed in human history2 the art for art's sake ideal incarnate2 genius divorced from conscience1 save only as applied to the art work itself--the inexorable duty of portraying the utmost conceivable energy1 fury1 splendor1 terror1 sublimity1 melodrama1 pity1 elegance1 greed1 horror1 cruelty1 anguish1 beauty1 passion1 worship1 longing1 wickedness1 glory1 frenzy1 majesty and delight40 ,this predatory artist1 living in a predatory world1 and portraying predatory emotions1 does not seem to us a propagandist1 simply because of the complete identity which exists between him and the thing he portrays4 ,it is the world which came into existence after the ,french revolution1 and has prevailed ever since4 ,the masses made the revolution1 hoping to profit from it2 but the merchants and bankers and lawyers took over the power4 ,alone1 this class in ,france could not have succeeded2 but they had the help of ,england--it is the triumph of ,british gold1 taking charge of the continent and making it over in the image of the 8shop-keeper03 the bourgeois world1 a society in which everybody seeks money1 and having obtained it1 spends it upon the getting of more money1 or upon the expansion of his personality through the power of money to dominate and impress other men4 ,those who succeed enjoy1 while those who fail are trampled2 such is the 8,comdie ,humaine10 as ,balzac exhibits it in a total of eighty-five works of prose fiction1 not counting dramas1 essays and reviews4 ,he was born of a bourgeois family and educated for a lawyer4 ,but he wanted to write1 and because his family would not support him1 he went away and starved most hideously in a garret4 ,the hunger which he there acquired was not merely of the stomach and the senses1 but of the intellect and soul4 ,he became a ferocious1 almost an insane worker4 ,he was greedy for facts1 and never forgot anything2 he acquired a whole universe of detail1 names1 places1 technical terms1 the appearances of persons and things1 human characteristics1 anecdotes1 conversations4 ,he wove these into his stories1 he constructed vast panoramas of ,french society1 colossal processions marching past without end4 ,the bulk of his work is so enormous that you may spend your lifetime reading ,balzac1 exploring the lives of his two or three thousand characters4 ,what will you know when you get through8 ,you will know ,french bourgeois civilization1 high and low1 rich and poor1 good and evil4 ,you will observe the rich growing richer and the poor growing poorer2 you will discover the greedy devouring the good and patient and honest--and then coming to ruin through their own insensate desires4 ,it is brilliant1 vivid1 as real as genius can make it1 and at first you are enthralled4 ,how marvelous1 to learn about the world without the trouble of going into it6 ,but after you have read for a month or two1 another feeling steals over you1 a feeling of familiarity3 you know all this1 why read any more8 ,life is odious and cruel1 it makes you ill2 your one thought becomes1 can anything be done about it8 ,is there any remedy8 ,and from that moment you are done with ,balzac4 ,for1 so far as this 8,comdie ,humaine0 is concerned1 there is no remedy4 ,balzac was so much a part of his own corrupt age that he could not have conceived of a co-operative world4 ,he saw the class struggle1 of course--and took his stand on the side of his money4 ,a passionate ,tory1 he referred to 8the two eternal truths1 the monarchy and the ,catholic church40 ,his attitude to politics was summed up in the formula that the people must be kept 8under the most powerful yoke possible40 ,you find in his novels tremendous loads of philosophic and scientific learning1 practically all of it utter trash4 ,henry ,james disposes of him in the sentence3 8,he was incapable of a lucid reflexion40 ,the nearest approach to a definite proposition to be got out of his writings is the notion that desire1 imagination and intellect are the destroyers of life4 ,of course1 if that be true1 civilization is doomed1 and it is a waste of time to seek moral codes or understanding1 or even to produce art4 ,such a view was1 of course1 simply the reflex of the predatory artist's own greed for money1 luxury1 fame and power4 ,he lived alternately for art and ,mammon4 ,he would shut himself up alone in a secret place and write for weeks1 even months1 without seeing anyone4 ,he would start work at midnight1 clad in a white ,benedictine robe1 with a black skull-cap1 by the light of a dozen candles1 and under the stimulus of many pots of coffee4 ,having thus completed a masterpiece1 he would emerge to receive the applause of ,paris1 carrying a cane with an enormous jeweled head4 ,having made another fortune and paid a small part of what he called his 8floating debt10 he would plunge into the wholesale purchasing of silks and satins and velvets1 furniture and carpets and tapestries and jewels and 8objects of art10 vast store-rooms full of that junk whereby the bourgeois world sets forth the emptiness of its mind and the futility of its aims4 ,lacking money enough1 his maniac imagination would evolve new schemes--book publishing1 paper manufacturing1 a journal1 a secret society1 silver mines in ,sardinia1 the buried treasure of ,toussaint l',ouverture1 each of which he was sure was going to turn him into a millionaire overnight4 ,balzac gives prominence to that type of men whom the ,french call 8careerists02 that is to say1 men who set out to make their fortune1 at any cost of honor1 decency and fair play4 ,balzac admired such men--for the simple reason that he himself was that kind4 ,in his later years he met a wealthy ,polish lady1 ,madame ,hanska1 who became his mistress2 writing to his sister about it1 he set forth what this meant to him1 and his language was such as a 8confidence man0 would use1 writing to a woman confederate4 ,the alliance1 he wrote1 would give him access to the great world1 and 8opportunity for domination40 ,is the work of such a man propaganda8 ,if you accept the common dogma that blind egotistical instinct1 and the portrayal and glorification thereof1 constitute art1 while the effort to understand life1 and to reconstruct it into a thing of order and sense and dignity1 is propaganda--why then undoubtedly the 8,comdie ,humaine0 of ,honor de ,balzac is pure and unadulterated art4 ,if1 on the other hand1 you admit my contention that a man who is born into a money-ravenous world1 and who absorbs its poisoned atmosphere1 and sets himself to the task of portraying it1 not merely as real and inevitable1 but as glorious1 magnificent1 fascinating1 sublime--if you admit with me that such a man is a propagandist1 why then you must reconcile yourself to enduring the opposition of all orthodox literary critics4 ,,chapter ,,lxi ,,the ,,old ,,communard ,victor ,hugo was born in #ahjb1 three years later than ,balzac4 ,he grew up in the same world1 but was not satisfied to contemplate its diseases2 he sought remedies1 and became a convert to revolutionary ideals1 and so all critics agree that his work is marred by propaganda4 ,he lived to be eighty-three years old1 and went on writing and working to the very end1 so that the story of his life carries us through practically the whole of the nineteenth century4 ,we shall follow it1 and then come back and retrace parts of the same story in the lives of other artists1 ,french1 ,german1 ,british and ,american4 ,hugo's father was a revolutionary soldier who rose to be a general in ,napoleon's army4 ,as a little boy the poet followed the armies from place to place in ,switzerland1 ,italy and ,spain4 ,his mother was a ,royalist1 and the boy had an old ,catholic priest for a tutor1 and was taught the old dogmas1 literary as well as religious and political4 ,his conversion into a revolutionist was not completed until the age of forty-six4 ,having been brought about by contact with daily events1 this conversion was of tremendous influence upon the thought of ,europe4 ,he was a child of genius1 and his prodigious activity began early4 ,we find him composing a tragedy at the age of fourteen1 and at the age of seventeen publishing a journal with the title of the 8,literary ,conservator40 ,he gets married upon a pension of a thousand francs1 conferred upon him by ,king ,louis ,,xviii1 who has been put upon the throne to preserve ,catholic reaction4 ,then comes ,king ,charles ,x1 who makes him a knight of the ,legion of ,honor at the age of twenty-three4 ,but gradually the young poet's 8throne and altar stuff0 begins to shown signs of independent thought2 he composes a play in which ,richelieu is portrayed as master of his king1 and this is considered unsuitable for such ticklish times2 the censor bars it1 and the young poet's personal intercession with the king does not avail4 ,all this time1 you understand1 ,french art is still under the sway of the so-called 8classical0 ideals of ,voltaire and ,racine2 tragic dramatists have to obey the 8three unities10 or they cannot get produced4 ,but by #ahcj the ,french people are sick of reaction1 and ready to make their revolution again4 ,as part of the change comes a surge of 8romanticism0 in the arts4 ,shakespeare is played in ,paris for the first time2 and ,victor ,hugo publishes a drama on the theme of ,cromwell1 with a preface in which he commits the blasphemy of declaring that ,racine is 8not a dramatist06 ,in the midst of the new revolution he produces a romantic play1 8,hernani10 dealing with a revolutionary ,spaniard of the ,byronic type1 who declaims all over the stage and dies sublimely4 ,the production of this play resulted in one continuous riot for forty-five nights4 ,the leading lady protested1 the hired claque revolted2 so ,victor ,hugo called for help to the young artists of the studios1 and they poured out of ,montmartre and took possession of the theater4 ,in those days the first purpose of romantic youth was to 8shock the bourgeois0 by strange costumes4 ,here was ,thophile ,gautier1 nineteen years old1 with long locks hanging over his shoulders1 a scarlet satin waistcoat1 pale sea-green trousers seamed with black1 and a gray overcoat lined with green satin4 ,night after night the rival factions shouted and raged as long as the play lasted4 ,all this in order to gain for dramatists the right to show more than one scene in a play1 and more than twenty-four hours of their hero's life6 ,victor ,hugo also wrote fiction and prose1 and in every field he became the new sun of ,france4 ,but he was not content with literary laurels2 he went on seeking a remedy for the bourgeois disease4 ,he espoused the cause of a poor workingman1 who1 having been tortured in prison1 had killed the governor of the prison4 ,the young poet came upon a novel remedy--to sow the ,bible all over ,france4 8,let there be a ,bible in every peasant's hut40 ,here in ,america the ,gideonites have tried out the idea1 sowing a ,bible in every hotel room--but for some reason there are more crimes of violence in the ,united ,states than ever before in any civilized country6 ,the revolution of #ahcj brought in a new king1 ,louis-,philippe1 the ideal bourgeois monarch1 an amiable gentleman who stayed at home with his wife and let the bankers and business men run the country4 ,this king made ,victor ,hugo into a peer of ,france4 ,but there was a new revolutionary outburst preparing1 and in #ahdh the bourgeois king was dethroned1 and ,victor ,hugo was elected deputy to the new parliament1 styling himself a 8moderate ,republican40 ,the ,french people at this time were in the same position as the ,american people at present2 that is1 they believed what they were told1 and were ready to accept any tinseled circus-performer as a statesman4 ,they chose for their president a wretched creature who happened to be a nephew of ,napoleon ,bonaparte1 and promised a return of all the old glories of ,france4 ,it took only a year of his government for ,victor ,hugo to realize that the one hope for progress lay in the program of the radicals4 ,his two grown sons were thrown into jail for editing a paper attacking the policies of ,louis ,napoleon2 and the father espoused the ideas of the old revolution1 8the rights of man40 ,egged on by the terrified financiers1 ,louis ,napoleon overthrew the parliament and had himself made emperor4 ,victor ,hugo sought to rouse the people1 barricades were raised in the streets1 and hundreds were shot down with cannon4 ,the poet with great difficulty made his escape to ,brussels1 from which city he denounced the usurper--8,napoleon the ,little0 as he called him--with the result that the ,catholic government of ,belgium passed a law expelling him4 ,he fled to the channel island of ,jersey1 where he wrote a book of poems called 8,the ,chastisements10 one of the most terrific pieces of denunciation in all the world's literature4 ,shortly after this the bourgeois government of ,england combined with the bourgeois government of ,france to drive ,russia out of the ,crimea2 there was a great war1 and the people of ,jersey objected to the poet's attacks on the ,french emperor2 they mobbed his home1 and he had to flee to the neighboring island of ,guernsey1 where he settled down to the true task of a great artist1 to reform the world by changing the ideals of the coming generations4 ,for nineteen years he stayed in exile1 until 8,napoleon the ,little0 brought himself to ruin1 and his country along with him4 ,in the meantime ,victor ,hugo had published several volumes of marvelous poetry1 and finally1 after ten years' labor1 his masterpiece of fiction1 8,les ,misrables10 which appeared simultaneously in eight capitals of the world1 and brought its author the sum of four hundred thousand francs4 ,into this novel ,hugo poured all his passionate devotion to liberty1 equality and fraternity2 likewise his blazing hatred of cruelty and tyranny4 ,he tells the story of an escaped convict who reforms and makes a success of his life1 but is pursued by the police and dragged back to prison4 ,incidentally the poet gives us a vast picture of the ,france of his own time1 and the lives and struggles of the proletariat4 ,the figure of ,jean ,valjean is one of the great achievements of the human imagination1 and his story is a treasure of the revolutionary movement in every modern land4 8,napoleon the ,little0 led his country to war with ,germany and was overwhelmingly crushed4 ,hugo came home in this crisis1 and took part in the defense of ,paris4 ,then came the terrible uprising of the starved and tortured masses1 the ,paris ,commune4 ,by this time the bourgeois savages had machine-guns1 so that they could wipe out wholesale the idealism and faith of the people2 they stood some fifty thousand workers1 men1 women and children1 against the walls of ,paris and shot them down in cold blood4 ,victor ,hugo defended these ,communards1 and once more had to flee for his life4 ,after the peace with ,germany1 ,france was left a republic1 and her great poet returned to live with his grandchildren1 to labor for the working classes1 and to pour out floods of eloquence in behalf of his social ideals4 ,new movements arose1 and the old man heard that he was theatrical1 bombastic1 unreal4 ,all that is true to a considerable extent2 for ,hugo is like ,shelley1 having the defects of his great qualities4 ,when the inspiration does not come to him1 he learns to imitate it2 he acquires mannerisms1 he adopts poses4 ,following ,milton's suggestion of making an art work of his life1 he sets his personality up as an embodiment of revolutionary idealism1 he makes himself into a legend1 a living monument1 a literary shrine1 one might say a literary cathedral4 ,it is only a step from the sublime to the ridiculous1 and we often take that step with ,victor ,hugo4 ,but the masses of the people knew that the core of his being was a passionate devotion to liberty and justice2 therefore they took him to their hearts1 and his life is so blended with theirs that ,victor ,hugo and revolutionary ,france are two phrases with one meaning4 ,,chapter ,,lxii ,,tyger1 ,,tyger6 ,what would ,victor ,hugo have been if he had had no social conscience8 ,what would the romantic movement have amounted to if it had confined itself to the field of art8 ,these questions are answered for us by ,thophile ,gautier4 ,we have seen him at the age of nineteen taking part in the battle of 8,hernani0 in his scarlet satin waistcoat2 we see him at the same age leading the art students in mocking dances about a bust of ,racine in a public square of ,paris4 ,after that we see him for forty-two years diligently following the art for art's sake formula4 ,he declares that he has no religion1 no politics2 he has no concern with any moral or intellectual question1 he is purely and simply an artist1 devoting himself with passionate fervor to the production of works of pure beauty4 ,his fastidiousness is shown by the law he lays down1 that a young artist should write not less than fifty thousand verses for practice before he writes one verse to be published4 ,and what is the content of this art8 ,gautier believes in one thing1 the human body4 ,he believes in it1 not as an instrument of the mind1 a house of the spirit1 but as a thing in itself1 to be fed and pampered and perfumed1 and clad in silks and satins1 and taken out to engage in sexual adventures4 ,the pretensions of art for art's sake turn out to be buncombe2 the reality of the matter is art for orgy's sake4 ,at the age of twenty-four ,gautier published a novel1 8,mademoiselle de ,maupin10 which might be described as ,shakespeare's 8,as ,you ,like ,it0 rewritten by the devil4 ,a young lady of beauty and fashion goes wandering in the costume of a man1 and this affords endless possibilities of sexual titillation2 women fall in love with her1 thinking she is a man1 and men fall in love with her by instinct1 as it were2 the orgies thus postponed are especially thrilling when they finally occur4 ,some men have written this kind of depravity at twenty-four1 and learned something better as they grew older2 but ,gautier learned absolutely nothing4 ,to the end of his long life he continued to produce novels and tales of which the sole purpose is to glorify the orgy1 to make it romantic and thrilling by the elaborate squandering of wealth1 the heaping mountain high of the apparatus of luxury4 ,the device fails1 for the simple reason that the senses are limited4 ,when you are hungry a dinner interests you1 but ten thousand dinners appall2 and the same thing applies to coition4 ,the men and women in these orgies remind us of people in a besieged castle1 living in deadly terror of an enemy who never fails to get them in the end4 ,the ,french have made a word for that victorious enemy3 ennui4 ,it should hardly need to be said that the art of ,thophile ,gautier is a leisure-class art4 ,these orgies are possible only in a slave civilization2 they presuppose the fact that the masses shall toil to heap up wealth for a privileged few to destroy in a night of riot4 ,at the very opening of 8,mademoiselle de ,maupin0 the author portrays his hero1 living at ease with a valet to serve him1 and nothing to do but be discontented4 8,my idle passions growl dully in my heart1 and prey upon themselves for lack of other food40 ,he is consumed with imaginings--all1 needless to say1 having to do with pleasures which he does not mean to earn4 8,i wait for the heavens to open1 and an angel to descend with a revelation to me1 for a revolution to break out and a throne to be given me1 for one of ,raphael's virgins to leave the canvas and come to embrace me1 for relations1 whom ,i do not possess1 to die and leave me what will enable me to sail my fancy on a river of gold10 etc4 ,his dream finally takes the form of a woman1 and he spends many pages in detailing her qualities4 ,needless to say1 she belongs to the rioting classes4 8,i consider beauty a diamond which should be mounted and set in gold4 ,i cannot imagine a beautiful woman without a carriage1 horses1 serving-men1 and all that belongs to an income of a hundred thousand a year2 there is harmony between beauty and wealth40 ,of course this dream-woman must be entirely subject to the sensual desires of man4 8,i consider woman1 after the manner of the ancients1 as a beautiful slave designed for our pleasure40 ,victor ,hugo was exiled by ,louis ,napoleon2 while ,gautier1 having 8no political opinions10 remained in ,paris and accepted financial favors from the tyrant4 ,what he considered his master work was published at the age of forty-five1 a volume of verse whose title explains its character1 8,enamels and ,cameos40 ,the art of poetry has become identical with that of the goldsmith2 words are tiny jewels1 fitted together with precise and meticulous care4 ,words have beauty1 quite apart from their meaning1 and the proper study for mankind is the dictionary4 ,poetry should have neither feeling nor ideas2 while as for the subject1 the more unlikely and unsuitable it is1 the greater the triumph of the poet4 ,this is not an effort to caricature ,gautier's doctrine1 it is his own statement1 the theme of one of his poems4 ,but on no account are you to take this poem for propaganda6 ,you see how the proposition demonstrates its own absurdity4 ,thophile ,gautier was during his entire lifetime a fanatical preacher1 a propagandist of sensuality and materialism1 a glorified barber and tailor1 a publicity man for the ,association of ,merchants of ,tapestries1 ,furniture and ,jewelry4 ,when he writes a poem on the subject of a rose-colored dress1 he asks you to believe that he is really interested in the rose-colored dress1 but you may be sure that he is no such fool2 he writes about the rose-colored dress as an act of social defiance4 ,he says3 ,there are imbeciles in the world who believe in religion1 in moral sense1 in virtue1 self-restraint and idealism1 subjects which bore me to extinction2 in order to show my contempt for such imbeciles1 ,i proceed to prove that the greatest poem in the world can be written on a rose-colored dress or on a roof1 or on my watch1 or on smoke1 or on whatever unlikely subject crosses my mind2 ,i consecrate myself to this task1 ,i become a moral anti-moralist1 a propagandist of no-propaganda4 ,what are the products of nature bearing most resemblance to enamels and cameos8 ,they are certain kinds of insects1 beautiful1 hard1 shiny1 brilliantly colored1 repulsive1 cruel1 and poisonous4 ,such is the art of ,thophile ,gautier and his successors1 who have made ,french literature a curse for a hundred years4 ,this literature possesses prestige because of its perfection of form2 therefore it is important to get clear in our minds the fact that the ability to fit words together in intricate patterns is a thing ranking very low in the scale of human faculties4 ,the feats of the art-for-art-sakers are precisely as important as those of the man on the stage who balances three billiard-balls on the end of his nose4 ,the piano-gymnast who leaped to world fame by his ability to wiggle his fingers more rapidly than any other living man has been definitely put out of date by the mechanical piano-player2 and some day mankind will adopt a universal language1 and forget all the enamels and cameos in the old useless tongues4 ,get it clear in your mind that external beauty is entirely compatible with deadly cruelty of intellect and spirit4 ,a tiger is a marvelous product1 from the esthetic point of view1 and offers a superb theme to poets1 as ,william ,blake has shown us4 8,tyger1 tyger1 burning bright0--but who wants this gold-striped glory in his garden8 ,in exactly the same way1 there is a mass of what is called literature1 possessing the graces of form--music and glamor1 elegance1 passion1 energy--and using all these virtues1 precisely as the tiger uses his teeth and claws1 to rend and destroy human life4 ,literary criticism which fails to take account of such vicious qualities in art works is just exactly as sensible and trustworthy as the merchant who would sell you a cobra de capello1 with a gorgeous black and white striped hood1 for a boudoir ornament and pet4 ,,chapter ,,lxiii ,,the ,,child ,,of ,,his ,,age ,the middle of the nineteenth century was a hard time for generous-minded and idealistic poets in ,france4 ,the great revolution had failed1 it failed again in #ahcj and in #ahdh1 and cruelty and greed and corruption seemed to be the final destiny of civilization4 ,a few strong spirits kept the faith1 but the weaker ones drifted away and drowned their sorrows in debauchery and drink4 ,alfred de ,musset was one of these latter1 a beautiful and charming youth1 gifted with all the graces of life and with the magic fire of genius4 ,he has told his own sad story in a book1 8,the ,confessions of a ,child of ,his ,age40 ,most of the strong and healthy men of ,france had been killed off in the ,napoleonic wars1 and the new generation were the children of weaklings4 ,they drifted aimlessly1 having luxury but no duties1 and no vision or ideal to inspire them4 ,musset was born in #ahaj1 of a well-to-do and cultured family4 ,he was impressionable1 sensitive1 and in the beginning plunged with ardor into the poetical movement headed by ,hugo4 ,but soon he lost interest1 and gave himself to amorous adventures and to mournful self-pity1 an elegant young ,byron of the boulevards4 ,it was a time when a poet could make a national reputation by comparing the moon above a church-steeple to a dot on the letter i4 ,musset1 from the beginning to the end of his short life1 had no experience of any sort except sexuality1 alcohol1 and the poetry of men who likewise had no other experience4 ,at the age of twenty-three he met ,george ,sand1 a woman of thirty who had run away from her family and was supporting herself as a free-lance novelist4 ,she carried the young poet off to ,italy1 but their dream of love broke up in a quarrel1 and poor ,musset had brain fever1 and came home1 and sat all day in his room for four months1 so his brother tells us1 doing nothing but crying1 except when he played chess4 ,but at the end of the four months he went out and found another love1 and then another and another4 ,any woman would do1 according to his philosophy1 poetically set forth in an exquisite verse3 8,what matters the flagon1 provided one is drunk80 ,the young poet was welcomed to the ,french ,academy1 but was not very faithful to his duties4 ,said one of the members3 8,musset absents himself too much40 ,to which the answer was3 8,musset absinthes himself too much40 ,he was an old rou at the age of thirty1 and there was nothing left but to die4 ,long afterwards ,george ,sand published a novel in which she told the intimate details of their love affair2 and that1 of course1 was fine copy1 and a tremendous thrill4 ,the title of the novel was 8,she and ,he10 and ,musset's brother came back with a book entitled 8,he and ,she40 ,it appears that ,george ,sand had been unfaithful to ,musset in the midst of their amour2 but we cannot get up much sympathy for the unhappy 8child of his age40 ,his brother delicately tells us how1 in the days of his beautiful youth1 lying in bed at night1 the young poet would impart shy confidences about his amorous triumphs4 ,he was seducing other men's wives and daughters and sisters1 and was apparently not concerning himself with any brain fevers these men might have1 or with any tears of grief they might shed in between their games of chess4 ,two of the most beautiful and eloquent of ,musset's poems are entitled1 respectively1 8,a ,night of ,may0 and 8,a ,night of ,december40 ,each of them portrays the poet as falling sorrowfully out of love4 ,the world had naturally assumed that the two poems related to the same mistress2 but the poet's brother revealed that the two poems had a different 8motive10 and also that there was another 8motive0 in between the ,may 8motive0 and the ,december 8motive40 ,and there were many other 8motives0--since numbers of elegant ladies in ,paris aspired to become the theme of one of the 8,nights0 of this delicate if drunken genius4 ,we shall see a long string of poets of this sort for a hundred years in ,france--and some1 alas6 in ,england and ,america4 ,the lesson of their lives is always the same--that poetry without social vision and moral backbone is merely a snare for the human spirit4 ,,chapter ,,lxiv ,,prayer ,,in ,,adultery ,the problem of the relationship of art to morality is most interestingly illustrated by the case of ,george ,sand4 ,this woman-writer was promiscuous1 and she was predatory1 in the sense that she turned her adventures into copy and sold them in the market4 ,but she had a mind1 and she used it to investigate all the new ideas of her time4 ,she was moved1 not merely by her own desire for pleasure1 but by the sufferings and strivings of her fellow human beings4 ,she poured all these things into her books1 and made herself one of the civilizing forces of her time4 ,she was born in #ahjd and raised in a convent4 ,married at the age of eighteen1 and being unhappy1 she kicked over the traces and became a ,bohemian adventurer1 wearing trousers1 proclaiming the rights of passion1 taking to herself one conspicuous lover after another1 and then putting them into books for the support of herself and her two children4 ,she was the founder of what we might call emotional feminism4 ,she was religious in a sentimental way1 though a vigorous anti-clerical2 she became converted to ,socialism1 worked ardently for social reform1 and published many long novels in its support4 ,george ,sand had a romantic ancestry1 of which she did not fail to make literary use4 ,on her father's side she was descended from a royal bastard4 ,her mother had been a camp follower in the army of ,napoleon1 8a child of the old pavements of ,paris40 ,thus the novelist united in one person the aristocratic and the proletarian impulses4 ,a large percentage of her collected ancestors were illegitimate1 so she came honestly by her free love ideas4 ,on the other hand1 she was a very respectable1 hard-working bourgeois woman1 who preached interminably on virtue1 and paid all her debts1 and got good prices for her manuscripts--things which were regarded as extremely bad taste by the art-world of her time4 ,france had had innumerable aristocratic ladies who had loved promiscuously1 proceeding from a king to a duke1 and from a duke to an abb or a monseigneur4 ,there had been women who had risen from the lower classes by becoming the mistresses of noblemen4 ,but here was a brand-new phenomenon1 a woman who went out and faced the world 8on her own10 and instead of taking the money of the men she loved1 proceeded to earn the money by writing about the men6 ,it was an enormous scandal1 and at the same time an enormous literary success1 for these were pot-boilers of genius1 full of eloquence and fire4 ,also they were full of ideas on a hundred subjects1 elementary instruction such as ladies on the women's pages of our ,sunday supplements give to correspondents4 ,but ,american readers find it a little hard to understand the fusion of piety and sexuality which ,george ,sand pours into her romantic novels4 8,oh1 my dear ,octave10 writes an adulterous wife to her lover1 8never shall we pass a night together without kneeling and praying for ,jacques60 ,it is just a little shocking to us to learn that this ,jacques is the husband whom the pair are deceiving6 ,george ,sand lived like a healthy bourgeoise to the age of seventy-two2 in her later years she retired to the country1 and the fires of free love died1 and she wrote novels about the peasants in her neighborhood4 ,they are very human and simple1 and make standard reading for ,french courses in ,american high schools4 ,it is interesting to compare them with the old-style handling of the peasants in ,french art4 ,gone are the fancy pictures of beautiful young shepherds and shepherdesses in silks and satins and high-heeled slippers4 ,now for the first time a ,french artist finds it worth while to go out among the working people of the fields1 and observe the external details of their lives1 and at least try to imagine their feelings4 ,we note the same thing happening also in pictorial art2 instead of the elegancies of ,fragonard1 we now have a peasant painter1 ,millet1 peasant born and peasant reared1 making real pictures full of real proletarian feeling4 ,that much as least the revolution has accomplished6 ,,chapter ,,lxv ,,main ,,street ,,in ,,france 8,eighteen years ago10 says ,ogi1 8a lanky1 red-headed youth from ,minnesota ran away from ,yale ,university and showed up at ,helicon ,hall to stoke our furnace4 ,we were never entirely sure about the furnace1 but we could always count upon lively arguments on the literary side of our four-sided fireplace4 ,now this youth has grown up and added a new phrase to the ,american language--0 8#8,main ,street' or #8,babbitt'80 says ,mrs4 ,ogi4 8,recall the story of #8,main ,street4' ,a young girl marries a doctor and lives with him in one of the desolate1 cultureless villages of the ,northwest4 ,the novel is a long one1 and the method that of minute detail2 we learn everything about the little place and the people in it1 their empty1 sordid lives1 the utter absence of vision4 ,the girl is lonely and restless1 she craves something beautiful and inspiring4 ,she has luxurious tastes1 and chafes at having to economize4 ,she meets a handsome1 attractive young man1 and after many agonies of soul she takes him as her lover4 ,in the end he leaves her2 and after being heart-broken for a while she takes another lover4 ,he also deserts her1 and she is ill1 in debt1 and finally takes poison1 and her husband1 the doctor1 dies of grief--0 8,hold on10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi1 8you must have been reading a sequel to #8,main ,street4' ,i don't remember any of those things happening4 ,carol ,kennicott thought she loved the other man1 but she didn't deceive her husband1 she held herself back--0 8,it is another of my poor jokes10 says ,ogi4 8,this is not the story of #8,main ,street1' but of a famous ,french classic1 #8,madame ,bovary' by ,gustave ,flaubert4 ,you see1 the themes of the two novels are identical1 and so is the method2 the difference lies in the temperaments of two races4 ,the young man from ,sauk ,centre and the young man from ,rouen alike call themselves 8realists02 but one proceeds upon the assumption that it is possible to restrain passion1 and on the whole1 better to try1 while the other proceeds upon the assumption that it is impossible to restrain passion1 and that if you pretend to do it1 you are a ,puritan1 and what is worse1 a hypocrite4 ,so at the end of ,carol ,kennicott's story we find her still trying to introduce a little light into ,gopher ,prairie1 while ,emma ,bovary is dead and the town of ,yonville-l',abbaye is exactly what it was before40 ,flaubert is by many considered the greatest of all realists4 ,he made his religion out of a theory of style2 and he was absolutely certain that 8,madame ,bovary0 was the final product of the 8objective0 method4 ,he had coldly observed reality1 and no predisposition had been allowed to interfere4 ,my purpose in mixing him up with ,main ,street1 ,gopher ,prairie1 ,minn41 is to bring out the contention that 8,madame ,bovary0 is as subjective as a lyric2 from first to last an expression of its author's personal1 or shall we say racial conviction1 that the sexual impulse dominates the lives of men and women4 ,the great classic of realism is a legal brief1 in which every detail has been carefully selected and arranged1 and every sentence composed for the purpose of proving this argument4 ,we have once more the old ,greek tragedy with its lurking ,nemesis2 only this time the lurking-place is in the genital glands4 ,flaubert was born in #ahba1 so that he was a youngster to the group of writers we have been considering3 ,balzac1 ,hugo1 ,gautier1 ,george ,sand4 ,he was a tall1 lanky1 provincial fellow1 with drooping mustaches1 looking like a dragoon4 ,he was epileptic and hysterical1 and suffered agonies of melancholy1 for the most part over problems of style4 ,he would pace the floor all night in torment seeking for a missing word2 he records that he spent eight unhappy days in avoiding one dissonance4 ,the action of all his life which he repented most was a phrase in 8,madame ,bovary40 ,translated literally1 this phrase is 8a crown of flowers of orange-tree02 the unforgivable sin lying in the two 8ofs40 ,we are told that ,flaubert originated a formula of art which ,gautier cherished all the rest of his life3 8,the form is the parent of the idea40 ,in other words1 you first think of a beautiful way to say something1 and then you think of something to say which can be said in that way4 ,it would be impossible for art perversity to go farther2 and you have only to consider 8,madame ,bovary0 to realize how little ,flaubert followed his own theory4 ,he did not first think of a prose work in two parts1 the first part having nine chapters and the second part fifteen2 what he thought of was the ,french formula1 locating the seat of ,nemesis in the genital glands4 ,the secret of his masterpiece is the fact that he chose to illustrate this formula by means of characters which he knew intimately and loved with all the power of his instinctive being4 ,that is the real basis of the greatness of 8,madame ,bovary02 the fact that with all her faults and all her follies her creator loved her1 and believed in her1 and made her real in every breath she drew and in every word she uttered4 ,the important idea which he put across is that we are all of us1 good or bad1 wise or foolish1 stupid or clever1 passengers on the same ship of life1 tossed by the same storms1 and bound for the same unknown harbor4 ,that is the propaganda which makes the greatness of every work of realism1 if it has greatness4 ,and so we can understand the failure of this unhappy genius in his other writings4 ,he went back to ancient ,carthage1 and following his rigid art theories1 he laboriously accumulated knowledge of detail1 and wrote what he meant to be another masterpiece of realism1 8,salammb40 ,he creates for us a whole gallery of ,carthaginian characters2 but he doesn't know these characters1 he doesn't love them1 he doesn't make us know them or love them--and his would-be masterpiece is therefore as lifeless as any gallery of wax works4 ,we read it with curiosity because of the historical detail1 the pictures of a far-off and cruel civilization2 but we seldom finish it1 and we forget everything but what a history-book might have given us4 ,,chapter ,,lxvi ,,the ,,mattress ,,grave ,we have paid a long visit to ,france1 and must now cross the ,rhine and see what is happening in ,germany4 ,it is interesting to note that the two artists whom we are about to study are men who had to flee from ,germany and spend a considerable part of their lives as political exiles in ,paris4 ,heinrich ,heine was born in #agii1 the same year as ,balzac4 ,he was a ,jew1 and it was a time when the ,jews in ,frankfort were penned up in a filthy ghetto and subjected to insults and outrages2 the 8,jew-grief0 was one of the deep elements of this great poet's soul4 ,another element was the shame of the 8poor relation02 he had a rich uncle1 a millionaire banker in the bourgeois city of ,hamburg1 who took the youthful genius into his office at the age of nineteen1 and soon afterwards kicked him out1 telling him that he was 8a fool40 ,among other follies1 the young genius had fallen in love with the rich banker's daughter1 and she toyed with him for a while1 and then married respectably1 and gave the poet's heart a wound from which it never recovered4 ,to get rid of him the uncle set him to studying law2 but he made a poor student and a worse lawyer4 ,in order to be allowed to practice he had to be baptized as a ,christian2 this doesn't really do one any harm1 but it caused shame to ,heine throughout his life4 ,he had no real religion1 being a child of ,voltaire1 a rebel1 and in due course a revolutionist4 ,he was a poet1 a maker of exquisite verses1 full of unutterable tenderness4 ,also he was a lover2 he wandered here and there with his broken heart1 trying many casual loves1 and paying for his adventures a frightful penalty1 as will appear4 ,we are back in the days of the 8,holy ,alliance10 and all the little princelings of ,germany are holding the thoughts of their subjects in a vise4 ,heine put satirical and skeptical ideas into rhyme2 he had a bitter wit1 and his words flew all over ,germany1 and the ,hohenzollerns of ,prussia not merely suppressed one book1 they paid him the compliment of prohibiting everything he might write4 8,put a sword on my coffin10 he said1 in one of his stanzas1 8for ,i have been a soldier in the war for the liberation of humanity40 ,the revolution of #ahcj came in ,france1 and ,heine was deeply stirred1 and hoped for something to happen in ,germany4 ,but he had to wait a long time1 nearly a hundred years2 then1 strange whim of history1 three million ,american boys had to cross the ocean to win the political battle of this ,german-,jewish rebel6 ,heine could stand ,germany no longer1 and went to live in ,paris1 where he was welcomed by the whole romantic school4 ,he wrote letters1 articles and verses1 which went back to ,germany and helped carry on the war for freedom4 ,his genius and wit were such that all the efforts to bar his books only promoted their circulation4 ,fate played a queer prank upon the ,prussian ,junkerdom--their most popular sentimental songs1 which they know by heart and sing on all possible occasions1 were written by a rebel exile whom they had chased about the streets in a ,judenhetze2 the same man who wrote the terrible stanzas of 8,the ,silesian ,weavers10 picturing the starving wretches sitting in their huts and weaving a three-fold curse1 against ,god1 ,king and ,fatherland--8,old ,germany1 we weave thy shroud--we weave1 we weave60 ,his was a strange1 complex nature1 with many contradictory qualities4 ,he was called 8the ,german ,aristophanes40 ,he met in the end a ghastly fate2 a spinal disease1 the penalty of his casual loves1 slowly ate him up1 and for years he lay on what he called 8a mattress grave40 ,first he could scarcely walk1 then he could scarcely see1 and all the time he suffered hideously4 ,but his mind lasted to the end1 and he saw all things clearly1 including his own grim fate4 8,the ,great ,author of the ,universe1 the ,aristophanes of ,heaven1 wished to show the petty1 earthly1 so-called ,german ,aristophanes that his mightiest sarcasms are but feeble banter compared with ,his1 and how immeasurably ,he excels me in humor and in colossal wit40 ,,chapter ,,lxvii ,,siegfried-,,bakunin ,in my interpretation of artists so far ,i have had to rely1 for better or for worse1 upon myself2 no one else1 so far as ,i know1 has analyzed art works from the point of view of revolutionary economics4 8,tolstoi80 suggests ,mrs4 ,ogi4 8,tolstoi considered them from the point of view of ,christian primitivism1 a quite different thing4 ,but now at last ,i have help2 the economic interpretation of ,richard ,wagner has been done by ,bernard ,shaw in a little book1 #8,the ,perfect ,wagnerite1' published more than twenty-five years ago4 ,so ,i feel like a small boy taking shelter from his enemies behind the back of his big brother40 8,if you would talk like that more frequently10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi1 8you wouldn't have so many enemies60 ,richard ,wagner was a towering genius1 a master of half a dozen arts1 perhaps the greatest compeller of emotion that has ever lived4 ,he invented a new art-form1 the 8music-drama10 in which the arts of the musician1 the poet1 the dramatist1 the actor1 the scene-painter1 and the costumer are brought together and fused into a new thing1 8the music of the future40 ,it is a terrific engine for the evocation and intensification of human feelings2 in creating it1 and forcing its recognition by the world1 ,wagner performed a ,titan's task4 ,he was born in #ahac1 which made him thirty-five years of age when the revolution of #ahdh drove ,king ,louis ,philippe from the throne of ,france and sent an impulse of revolt all over ,europe4 ,wagner at this time was the conductor of the ,royal ,opera ,house at ,dresden1 having a life position with a good salary and a pension4 ,previous to that time he had had a ghastly struggle with poverty2 a young and unknown genius1 he had almost starved to death in a garret in ,paris4 ,he had married an actress1 who had no understanding whatever of his power1 but who had starved with him1 and now clung with frenzy to security4 ,he himself had the full consciousness of his destiny as an artist2 he had already written three great operas1 and had sketched his later works4 ,he had thus every reason in the world to protect his future1 and to shelter himself behind the art for art's sake formula4 ,instead of which1 he attended a meeting of a revolutionary society of ,dresden1 and delivered an address appealing to the king of ,saxony--the royal personage whose servant and pensioner he was--to establish universal suffrage1 to abolish the aristocracy and the standing army1 and to constitute a republic with ,his ,majesty as president4 ,needless to say1 ,his ,majesty did not follow this recommendation from his operatic conductor2 and next year the people of ,dresden rose1 and built barricades in the streets1 and ,wagner joined the revolutionists and actively took part in organizing their forces4 ,when the ,prussian troops marched in and put down the insurrection1 three men were proscribed in a royal proclamation as 8politically dangerous persons10 and condemned to death4 ,one was ,roeckel1 assistant conductor of the opera house1 who was captured and spent the next twelve years in a dungeon2 another was ,michael ,bakunin1 who became the founder of the ,anarchist movement2 and the third was ,richard ,wagner1 royal operatic conductor4 ,germany's greatest living genius spent his next twelve years as a political exile in ,france and ,switzerland4 ,he utilized the time1 in part to pour out political pamphlets1 and in part to embody his revolutionary view of life in his greatest art work4 ,those who are interested in the pamphlets may find extracts in 8,the ,cry for ,justice40 ,here is a sample from a manifesto entitled 8,revolution10 published in the ,dresden 8,volksblaetter03 ,arise1 then1 ye people of the earth1 arise1 ye sorrow-stricken and oppressed4 ,ye1 also1 who vainly struggle to clothe the inner desolation of your hearts with the transient glory of riches1 arise6 ,come and follow in my track with the joyful crowd1 for ,i know not how to make distinction between those who follow me4 ,there are but two peoples from henceforth on earth--the one which follows me1 and the one which resists me4 ,the one ,i will lead to happiness1 but the other ,i will crush in my progress4 ,for ,i am the ,revolution1 ,i am the new creating force4 ,i am the divinity which discerns all life1 which embraces1 revives1 and rewards4 ,the art work in which ,wagner embodied these revolutionary ideas is known as 8,the ,ring of the ,nibelung40 ,it consists of four long operas1 based upon the old ,german mythology4 ,it begins with a charming fairy story and ends with a grim tragedy2 and from first to last it is a study of the effects of economic power upon human life4 ,in the depths of the river dwell the ,rhine-maidens1 having a lump of gold which they admire because it shines1 but for which they have no other use4 ,an ugly little dwarf pursues them2 and when he cannot get their love1 he decides to get along with their gold4 ,he steals it1 and makes from it a magic ring1 which represents the ability to build cities and palaces1 to command luxury and pleasure--to be1 in short1 our present master class4 ,even the gods are seduced by this lure1 and fall to quarreling and intriguing for the magic power of gold4 ,the god ,wotan wrests it from the dwarf ,alberich2 and the latter puts a curse upon it1 to the effect that it can only be worn by those who have renounced love--which is just as you see it in our modern world1 and just as ,wagner saw it when he was a court servant in ,dresden1 and was driven mad by the insolence of hereditary privilege4 ,there are two giants1 who represent our great captains of industry1 and have built ,wotan a palace known as ,walhalla4 ,the giants have been promised ,wotan's sister1 the goddess of youthful beauty and goodness1 as their pay for this labor2 but they elect to take the ring instead4 ,this is ,wagner's way of telling us his opinion of the great bankers and gentlemen of wealth whom he vainly besought to assist him in the production of his beautiful works of art4 ,there were no factories in old ,german mythology2 but the scene shows us a cavern down in the bowels of the earth1 where ,alberich1 by the power of his ring1 compels all his fellow dwarfs to toil at making treasures for him4 ,we see him wielding the lash1 and the music snarls and whines1 and it is precisely the atmosphere you find in every sweat-shop and cotton mill and coal mine under our blessed competitive system4 ,and when we see one of the giants slay his brother1 and carry off the ring1 and turn himself into a dragon1 to sit upon it and guard it for the balance of time1 we know that ,wagner has visited the millionaire clubs of ,dresden1 and seen the fat old plutocrats in their big leather arm-chairs4 ,wotan1 the old god1 sees too late the ruin he has brought into the world2 he decides that the only way of escape is to create a hero who shall slay the dragon of privilege and break the spell of economic might4 ,this hero is the young ,siegfried1 the child of nature who knows no fear2 ,bernard ,shaw says that he is ,wagner's young ,anarchist associate1 ,bakunin4 ,and note that in this ,siegfried myth ,wagner foreshadows the downfall not only of capitalism1 but also of religion4 ,the last of the four operas is called 8,the ,twilight of the ,gods10 and the two evil spells of gold and of superstition are broken by the strong arm and the clear mind of a human youth4 ,wagner wrote the words of these four operas immediately after the ,dresden revolution2 the poem was privately published four years after his flight from the city4 ,during the years of his exile he affords us a sublime example of a great man contending with obstacles for the sake of an ideal4 ,he went ahead to compose his masterpiece in the face of poverty and debt1 ridicule and ignominy4 ,his works were absolutely new1 they required an absolutely new method of presentation2 so1 even when he could get a chance of production1 he had to face the stupidity and malice of singers and conductors and managers1 who were sure in their own conceit and resented instructions from an upstart4 ,we find him in #ahfj1 almost at the end of his exile1 receiving from ,louis ,napoleon an opportunity to put on 8,tannhuser0 in ,paris4 ,now this opera is a music sermon in reprehension of sensual love2 it portrays the ruin and ultimate repentance of a medieval knight who is lured into the ,venusburg1 the lurking place of the old heathen goddess4 ,and this ,sunday school lesson in music was to be presented in the great opera house1 whose boxes were rented by members of the ,jockey ,club1 the gilded youth of ,paris who supported the opera in order to provide publicity for their mistresses in the ballet6 ,the clash was embittered by the fact that the members of the ,jockey ,club came late from their supper-parties1 and wanted to see their mistresses dance2 therefore it was an iron-clad law of the opera that the ballet came in the second act4 ,but in ,wagner's ,sunday school lesson the knight is lured into the ,venusburg in the first act1 and the composer stubbornly refused to change his story4 ,therefore the young gentlemen of the ,jockey ,club yelled and hooted and blew penny-whistles all through the performance1 and kept that up night after night4 ,they even took the trouble to come on ,sunday to make sure of breaking up ,wagner's show4 ,it would be pleasant to have to record that this hero of the social revolution stood by his guns until the end of his life2 but alas1 he weakened1 and sold out completely to the enemy4 ,bernard ,shaw excuses him on the ground that the social revolution was not yet ready1 and that the revolutionists were impractical men4 ,but ,i say that it was ,wagner's task to help make the social revolution ready1 and to train the revolutionists by setting them an example of probity4 ,instead of that1 he decided that the establishing of his own reputation was more important than the salvation of society4 ,he accepted amnesty from the ,saxon king1 and came back and made himself into a great captain of the music industry1 and a national and patriotic hero4 ,he became the intimate friend and pensioner of the king of ,bavaria2 and for this king he wrote a highly confidential paper entitled 8,of the ,state and ,religion10 wherein he explained that he had once been a ,socialist1 but he now saw that the masses were gross and dull1 incapable of high achievement4 ,the problem was to get them to serve ends which they did not understand2 they must be deceived1 they must have illusions4 ,the first mass-illusion was patriotism2 they must be taught to reverence their king4 ,the second mass-illusion was religion2 they must believe they were obeying the will of ,god4 ,the difficulty of government lay in the fact that the ruling class must see the truth1 they could not believe either in the ,state or in ,god4 ,for them there must be the higher illusions of the ,wagnerian art4 ,needless to say1 for this secret service ,king ,ludwig paid generously1 and we find ,wagner spending his pension--,i cite one item1 three hundred yards of satin of thirteen carefully specified colors1 at a cost of three thousand florins6 ,he had craved luxury all his life1 and in the end he got it--not merely silks and satins and velvets1 for which he had a sort of insanity1 but all kinds of splendor and homage1 with kings and emperors to attend the opening performances of his operas4 ,when the ,franco-,prussian war breaks out we find our ,siegfried-,bakunin drinking the cup of military glory and pouring out a 8,kaiser-march02 we find him stooping to an operatic libretto in which he casts odium upon all the genius of ,france1 not sparing even ,victor ,hugo4 ,he reads ,schopenhauer1 and decides that he is a pessimist1 and has always been a pessimist1 and he tries to reinterpret his revolutionary 8,ring0 accordingly4 ,he composes a religious festival play1 a mixture of ,christian mysticism and ,buddhist fatalism1 called 8,parsival10 which made the fortune of his ,bayreuth enterprise1 a play-house built out of funds subscribed by his admirers4 ,wagner lived to old age1 full of honors1 and left a widow and a son1 poetically named ,siegfried4 ,the widow died recently1 but the son still survives1 to bask in his father's glory1 and to gather in the shekels of the music pilgrims4 ,it is possible to appreciate to the full the sublimity of the revolutionary ,wagner without paying reverence to this family institution which he has left behind1 or for the hordes of 8,schwaermer0 who come to eat sausages and drink beer and revel in emotions which they have no idea of applying to life4 ,is there anything in all the tragedies imagined by ,richard ,wagner more tragic than the fate which has befallen the young ,siegfried-,bakunin--whose prestige and tradition are now the financial mainstay of the ,white ,terror in ,germany1 the ,jew-baiting1 ,communist-shooting mob of the 8,hakenkreutzler10 or ,bavarian ,fascisti8 ,,chapter ,,lxviii ,,the ,,gospel ,,of ,,silence ,ogi has been wandering about the cave with a discontented expression on his face1 showing a disposition to growl at whatever gets in his way4 ,mrs4 ,ogi1 whose job is to notice domestic weather-signs1 inquires3 8,what is the matter with you80 ,says ,ogi3 8,i have to write an uninteresting chapter40 8,why don't you skip it80 8,i can't1 because it deals with an interesting man40 ,as she cannot guess that riddle1 he goes on to complain3 8,if only ,i had been writing this book twenty-five years ago1 when ,i thought #8,sartor ,resartus' the most delightful book ever penned6 ,but ,i went on1 and got an overdose of ,carlyle4 ,i read almost all that ,gospel of ,silence in forty volumes2 and now ,i sit and ask3 what did ,i learn from it8 ,some facts1 of course3 history and biography4 ,but did ,i get a single valid idea1 one sound conclusion about life80 8,explain it quickly1 and pass on10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi4 8,i explain the human race1 blocked from the future by a sheet-steel door4 ,we need the acetylene torch of spiritual fervor2 also we need the engineering brain1 to say3 8,put it here1 and here1 and cut the hinges40 ,in the face of this task1 some of the wielders of the torch go off and get drunk4 ,others fall down on their knees and pray4 ,others forbid us to touch the door1 because ,god made it and it is ,his will4 ,others write noble verses with perfect rhymes1 to the effect that man is born to trouble1 and great art teaches us to endure discomfort with dignity4 ,others take fire with zeal1 and proceed to butt the door down with their heads4 ,they butt and butt1 until their heads ache4 ,i realize how undignified it is to describe a great master of ,english prose as a #8sorehead'2 yet there happens to be no other word in the language that so tells the story of ,thomas ,carlyle40 ,he was the son of a carpenter in ,scotland1 and suffered from poverty and neglect1 and through a long life from indigestion4 ,he complained pathetically that ,emerson ate pie and was well1 while he ate plain oatmeal and was miserable4 ,he was irritable1 and hard to get along with--we are privileged to know about this1 because both he and his wife wrote endless letters to their friends1 detailing their domestic troubles1 and these letters are published in many volumes1 and we can read both sides and take our choice4 ,tennyson refused assent to the proposition that the ,carlyles should have married elsewhere2 because then there would have been four miserable people instead of two4 ,carlyle made himself1 and also his literary style2 he was a hack writer1 biographer and translator1 and struggled along with a dissatisfied young wife in a lonely country cottage4 8,sartor ,resartus0 was written at the age of thirty-five1 and sketches the philosophy of an imaginary ,german professor1 whose name translated means 8,devil's ,dung02 this professor's philosophy being based upon the discovery that everything in civilization is merely clothes1 the outside of things1 the shams and pretensions and conventions4 ,it is funny to imagine our statesmen and diplomats and prominent society personages stripped1 not merely of their medals and ribbons1 but also of their shirts and trousers2 very few of them would look imposing--and the same applies to civilization with its proprieties1 moralities and religions4 ,this work of uproarious mischief fell absolutely flat in well-dressed and well-mannered ,england1 and ,emerson and a few people in far-off ,boston had to inform the ,british cultured classes that they had a new prophet among them4 ,the teaching of 8,sartor ,resartus0 is entirely negative2 and when you ask what ,carlyle had to contribute to constructive thinking about our hateful social system1 the answer is3 nonsense4 ,he saw the evils1 and scolded at them--and scolded equally hard at the forces which are to remedy the evils4 ,carlyle had contempt for the people1 out of whose lap he had sprung2 he despised democracy and the whole machinery of popular consent4 ,he repaid ,america for discovering him by ridiculing the ,union cause2 he denounced the reform bill of #ahfg as 8,shooting ,niagara40 ,carlyle's way to set the world right is revealed to us in a book called 8,hero-,worship40 ,first we have to find the ,great ,man2 and then we have to obey him4 8,obedience is the primary duty of man0--meaning1 of course1 the man like you and me1 who is spelled with a little m4 ,the one who is spelled with a capital letter is the ,autocrat1 who makes us do what we ought to do4 8,a nation that has not been governed by so-called tyrants never came to much in the world40 ,our ,great ,tyrant sets us all hard at work4 ,he makes us build houses and cultivate farms--but no machinery or railroads1 because these constitute ,industrialism1 which is a ,mammon-,monster4 ,if we do our work by machinery we have leisure1 and that is dangerous2 we must have ,work1 and then more ,work1 our one safe ,deliverance from ,devil-,mischief--you see how one picks up the style of the 8,gospel of ,silence06 ,having got the houses built1 what next8 ,why then1 to save us from the ,idleness-,imp we set to work knocking the houses down with cannon-balls4 ,i don't mean that ,carlyle always advocated war2 what he did was to glorify systems of government which historically have resulted and psychologically must result in war4 ,at the age of fifty-eight1 having surveyed the whole of history1 our ,scotch hero-worshipper selected the greatest of human heroes to become the subject of a grand state biography in six volumes3 and whom do you suppose this hero turns out to be8 ,frederick of ,prussia1 who stole ,silesia from his cousin1 and seized ,poland and divided it up among ,austria1 ,russia and himself2 ,jonathan ,wild the ,great1 founder of the ,hohenzollern ,heroism1 and great-great-grandfather of our ,world ,war6 ,i dutifully read those six large volumes1 and studied the series of charts in which the strategy of ,frederick's military campaigns is set forth4 ,i learned a fascinating parlor game1 which consists in moving here and there little black and white oblongs representing regiments and brigades and divisions and other military formations of human beings4 ,the white oblongs represent your own human beings1 and the black oblongs represent the human beings you propose to destroy2 you pound them to pieces with artillery1 you sweep them with volleys of musketry1 you charge them with cavalry and chop them with sabres--and then you move up other oblongs1 called reserves1 and continue the procedure4 ,it is safer to play this game on paper1 because when you get through1 you can throw the paper into the waste-basket1 and do not have some tens of thousands of dead and mutilated men and horses decaying all over your back yard4 ,a pitiful ending for a ,prophet and ,preacher who aspires to the ,remaking of ,mankind in ,capital ,letters6 ,just a poor1 bewildered old dotard1 dyspeptic and crotchety1 helpless and blundering1 aspiring to a certain end and working to the opposite end4 8,but why should anyone consider such a man great80 asks ,mrs4 ,ogi4 8,i have been trying to formulate that to myself4 ,it is because he had the grace to be unhappy about our modern world4 ,he did not get drunk on moonshine2 he did not tell himself that ,god was going to do what it was obviously the business of men to do4 ,he didn't persuade himself that ,evolution was going to do it1 or that ,time was going to do it1 or that ,faith was going to do it4 ,he didn't prattle about one increasing purpose running through the ages1 or about one far-off divine event to which the whole creation moves4 ,he didn't decide to dream his dream and hold it true1 or to have moments when he felt he could not die4 ,he didn't tell us that ,love will conquer at the last1 or that his faith was large in ,time--0 8,this appears to be a transition10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi4 8,precisely4 ,we are about to begin a new chapter3 ,the ,lullaby ,laureate1 or ,queen ,victoria's ,super-,soothing ,syrup40 ,,chapter ,,lxix ,,the ,,lullaby ,,laureate ,the story of my own soul is the story of ,alfred ,tennyson's reputation for the last thirty or forty years2 so that is the easiest way for me to tell about it4 ,i was one of ,tennyson's cultural products4 ,i cannot recall the age when ,i did not know 8,call me early1 mother dear10 and 8,what does little birdie say80 ,as soon as ,i had the idea of being anything1 ,i had the idea of being ,sir ,galahad4 ,i attended very devoutly a church1 which differed from that of ,alfred ,tennyson in one fact--that it had a prayer for the ,president of the ,united ,states in place of a prayer for the ,queen4 ,i doubt if it ever occurred to me to think that ,tennyson might be wrong in anything--until the age of fifteen1 when suddenly there dawned upon my horrified mind the idea that ,christianity was merely another mythology4 ,i wrestled with this idea for a couple of years1 and part of the struggle consisted of a study of 8,in ,memoriam10 recommended by my spiritual adviser4 ,the poem suggested a great many new reasons for doubting the immortality of the soul2 but it suggested no certainty that the ,creator of the universe1 having given me one life1 was under obligation to give me two4 ,which meant that ,i was through with ,tennyson1 whose whole product1 on its religious side1 is an agonized cry that immortality must be4 ,in politics and economics ,i experienced a similar revulsion from my one-time idol4 ,he seemed to me a victim of all the delusions1 a celebrator of all the shams of civilization4 ,even his poetical charms now annoyed me1 serving as trimming and decoration for second-rate ideas4 ,in my reaction ,i went too far1 as have all the young people of our time2 for ,tennyson was really a great poet1 and a man of fine and generous spirit4 ,he was the son of a ,church of ,england clergyman1 and that is a fact which must never be forgotten2 he grew up in a rectory1 and wrote ,sunday poetry4 ,he was the elder brother of a big family1 and took the position of elder brother to all mankind4 ,he was tall and imposing1 dark and romantic looking1 cultivating long wavy black locks and a ,spanish cloak and a poet's pipe4 ,when he did not know anything to say1 he puffed at his pipe and looked magnificent1 and everybody was awed4 ,culture came naturally in his family4 ,he had written five thousand octosyllabic rhymes at the age of twelve4 ,his first verses were published when he was young1 and because one or two critics made fun of them1 he took refuge in his dignity and waited nine years to publish again4 8,ulysses0 made his fame when he was thirty-three1 and two years later he received a pension from the ,tory government4 ,two years after that came 8,the ,princess10 a dramatic composition in ridicule of the higher education of women2 it suited the lower-educated ,victorian ladies so perfectly that it ran into five editions4 ,in #ahej1 at the age of forty-one1 ,tennyson became the laureate2 when he was seventy-four he was raised to the peerage4 ,no other ,english poet has earned this honor1 which is reserved to wholesale slaughterers of animals and men1 to brewers1 whiskey distillers1 diamond merchants1 and publishers of capitalist dope4 ,concerning ,lord ,tennyson as an artist in words1 there is little that needs to be said4 ,he received his 8ten talents0 and put them to use2 everywhere he went he carefully collected poetical impressions1 words1 phrases and ideas1 and jotted them down4 ,no one ever spent more time filing and perfecting1 and no one was more completely master of beautiful utterance4 ,he had an inquiring mind1 and picked up ideas on all subjects and put them into his poetry2 but unfortunately he found consecutive thinking very difficult1 and you can find as many contradictory thoughts in him as in the ,bible4 ,he has an invincible repugnance to the drawing of uncomfortable conclusions2 whenever his thinking leads to such1 he evaporates in a cloud of comforting words4 ,his verse contains more platitudes and cheap cheer-up stuff than any other poet known to me2 and so he was the darling of the antimacassar age4 ,england had put down ,napoleon and taken possession of the trade of the world4 ,there were revolutions on the continent1 but at home nothing worse than a few rioters to be clubbed by the police4 ,the foggy islands were a safe haven1 administered by landlords and merchants4 ,everything was for the best in the best of all possible worlds1 and the function of a poet was to tell it to the people1 in such beautiful language that they would accept it as a revelation4 ,tennyson in his early days had shown traces of liberalism1 but the ,chartist movement frightened him into reaction1 and there he stayed4 8,shout for ,england60 says the chorus of one of his poems1 and the function of the shout in suppressing thought is understood by all students of mob psychology4 8,riflemen1 form60 exhorted another poem1 published in the 8,times0-- ,let your reforms for a moment go2 ,look to your butts1 and take good aim4 ,that was1 so to speak1 a 8,timesly0 sentiment2 the riflemen hastened to form1 and the young aristocrats led them to slaughter1 and the poet laureate had to come forward again to glorify the ,british national habit of blundering4 8,the ,charge of the ,light ,brigade0 was so popular in its day that it was printed on picture post cards2 every school child learned the duty of the lower classes under the ,tory system-- ,theirs not to make reply1 ,theirs not to question why1 ,theirs but to do and die4 ,bear in mind that the factory system was now in full flower1 and little children ten and twelve years old were slaving all night in cotton mills1 or dragging heavy cars in the depths of coal mines4 ,english manufacturers and landlords were taxing the lower classes to such a condition that today1 when you see them pouring out for their holidays upon ,hampstead ,heath1 they seem not human beings1 but some lower species1 shambling and deformed4 ,once in a while a gleam of this horror breaks into ,tennyson's verse2 but even then the message is reactionary--an ,english gentleman is scolding at commercialism because it destroys the good old country life4 ,but for the most part the ,victorian way of dealing with uncomfortable things was to hush them up4 ,poetry must select pure and sweet subjects2 poetry must be polite1 it must use big words and preserve the home comforts4 ,it is our duty to believe what is proper1 even when it is obviously not true4 ,i have referred to ,tennyson's long agony on the subject of immortality4 ,the deepest experience of his life was the death of his friend1 ,arthur ,hallam1 a man who apparently knew how to think1 and to drive the dreamy poet to work4 ,it is puzzling to us that a grown man should be so taken aback by death2 it would seem to be a common enough phenomenon to be noted and prepared for4 ,but ,tennyson was struck down mentally and spiritually1 and his sufferings make clear to us that he did not really believe his creed4 ,men who are seriously convinced of heaven don't mind waiting a few years to join their loved ones2 but ,tennyson was never really sure that he would see ,arthur ,hallam again1 and he spent seventeen years brooding over this problem1 and putting his broodings into 8,in ,memoriam40 ,the poet early fell in love with a young ,english lady1 but could not afford to marry her2 so he waited twenty years1 and she waited also4 ,now there have been poets who married when they fell in love1 and went off and kept house in a garret or a cottage1 and made out the best they could4 ,but ,tennyson had to have his poet's robe and his poet's chair in front of the fireplace2 he had to be an ,english gentleman1 and to keep his wife like an ,english lady in the days of ,victorian propriety4 ,the lady1 when they were finally united1 put an end to fretting over immortality2 she explained to her husband that 8doubt is devil-born0--and what gentleman wants a devil in his home8 ,it is better to become an oracle3 to preach about peace in a far future1 and meantime wield a sword in the ,crimea2 to sing about justice1 and vote the ,tory ticket2 to have all the comforts that fine phrases can bring1 without sacrificing those other comforts of popularity and prosperity4 ,tennyson went back to the old days of ,britain1 and falsified the story of ,king ,arthur so as to make it sweetly sentimental4 8,obedience is the bond of rule10 he wrote2 and so ,queen ,victoria's husband came to call on him4 ,he preached submission to womanhood3 8,lay thy sweet hands in mine and trust to me0--and so he was summoned to ,windsor ,castle to kiss the sweet hand of his queen4 ,one thinks of the sweet hands of those ,english ladies who took up hatchets and chopped the pictures in the ,national ,gallery6 ,victoria's beloved husband died1 and ,tennyson wrote an ode to him2 so he became the dear pudgy old lady's intimate friend1 and she confided to him the troubles of royalty4 8,how ,i wish you could suggest means of crushing those horrible publications1 whose object is to promulgate scandal and calumny1 which they invent themselves60 ,the poet did his best2 his most popular sentimental and patriotic stuff was published in pamphlets which sold for thrippence2 but in spite of everything the labor movement continued to take root1 and likewise ,socialism--or 8,utopian idiocy10 to use the ,tennysonian phrase4 ,he sits upon his throne1 eighty years of age and more1 and hardly anyone questions his supremacy2 he is the greatest ,english poet since ,shakespeare1 there is no living writer to be compared to him4 ,we pity him1 for after all1 he is a great man1 and has written great verse--8,ulysses10 for example1 of which no one could ever wish to change a line4 ,he has written lyrics of beauty and real eloquence4 ,but now he sees the younger generation traveling another road from his1 and he wonders and fears and storms and scolds4 ,he is too clear-sighted not to see the wreck of his dreams-- ,poor old voice of eighty crying after voices that have fled6 ,he looks about and sees modern capitalism-- ,is it well that while we range with ,science1 glorying in the time1 ,city children soak and blacken soul and sense in city slime8 ,it was no common ,victorian who saw that at the age of eighty2 and no fair critic will deny him credit for such lines4 ,but the elderly poet-lord had no idea what to do about it1 and capitalist society continued to nourish its secret disease1 which twenty-two years after ,tennyson's death was to cover the whole earth with vomit4 ,,chapter ,,lxx ,,high-,,brow ,,society ,there was another poet who grew up in this unpromising ,victorian ,england4 ,his father and grandfather were bank officials1 and he had a comfortable income4 ,in his youth he was a dandy1 with lemon-colored gloves and flowing poetical locks2 he turned into a leading clubman and a prominent diner-out4 ,he believed in the ,church of ,england1 and in those social conventions which guide the lives of ,english gentlemen2 he refused to permit his wife to have anything to do with ,george ,sand's ,bohemian set1 and when she tried to investigate spiritualism he broke up the show4 ,and yet he managed to be a great and open-minded poet1 and in many ways a revolutionary force4 ,he had in him a core of sound instinct1 a healthy belief in life and a trust in his own intellect4 ,he fell in love with a lady poet by the name of ,elizabeth ,barrett1 who was an invalid1 kept in a kind of prison of duty by a tyrannical old father4 ,the poet did not wait twenty years for her2 he persuaded her to slip around the corner and marry him--a dreadful scandal in the polite world of ,england4 ,when ,i was a lad we did not have the word 8high-brow02 its place was filled by the word 8,browning40 ,learned ladies and gentlemen had formed a 8,browning ,society10 and held solemn meetings in which they tried to find out what these poems were about4 ,apparently the task proved a difficult one1 for they are at it still4 ,now a poet may be obscure because he has something to say which is very profound2 but there is little of that kind of obscurity in ,robert ,browning4 ,when you decipher his message1 it turns out to be something quite obvious1 like the immortality of the soul1 or the rights of love1 or the fact that human motives are mixed4 ,the cause of the obscurity is that the poet has invented a perverse way of telling these things2 he likes to play around the outside of a subject1 approach it from a dozen different angles1 and set you the task of piecing the thing together from hints and glimpses4 ,he is an enormously learned person1 and has rummaged in a thousand old dust-bins of history1 and acquired a million details of names and places and things2 he pays you the generally quite undeserved compliment of assuming that you know all this as well as he does4 ,if he wishes to tell you about some unknown musician in the court of some obscure ,renaissance ruler1 he will begin by talking about a ring this musician used to wear1 and the first dozen lines of the poem will depend upon an ancient ,greek legend concerning the stone that is in the ring4 ,if you don't know the legend about the stone in the ring of the musician in the court of the ,renaissance ruler1 why then the opening of the poem has no meaning to you1 and the ,browning ,society might hold a hundred sessions on the subject without making head or tail of it4 ,such writing is simply a bad joke2 it is one of the many forms of leisure-class art perversions4 ,when ,browning chooses to write real poetry1 he can make it just as simple and as melodious as ,tennyson's1 and far more passionate4 ,he invented a new and fascinating poetical form1 the dramatic lyric1 or dramatic soliloquy4 ,he will take some strange and complicated character1 whom he has picked up in the junk-rooms of the past1 and let this character start to talk and reveal himself to you--not merely the things he wants you to know1 but the things he is trying to hide from you1 and which he lets slip between the lines4 ,thus we have ,mr4 ,sludge1 the spiritualist medium1 who would have converted ,mrs4 ,browning if the poet had not kicked him out of the house4 ,thus we have ,bishop ,blougram1 an elegant and thoroughly modern ,catholic prelate1 discussing with an intimate friend over the wine and cigars the delicate question of how he justifies himself for feeding base superstition to the people1 who want it and can't get along without it4 ,browning knew how to be direct1 when his feelings were deeply enough stirred4 ,he was direct when he dealt with the old poet ,wordsworth and his apostasy from the cause of freedom4 ,anyone can understand the title1 8,the ,lost ,leader10 and the opening lines ,just for a handful of silver he left us1 ,just for a riband to stick in his coat4 ,likewise1 when the ,brownings went to ,italy and took fire at the struggle of the ,italian people for freedom1 everybody understood the poetry they wrote home2 even the ,austrian police understood it1 for they opened ,browning's mail1 to his furious indignation4 ,likewise1 when ,mrs4 ,browning died and some persons proposed to write her biography without her husband's permission1 the husband was able to make known his opposition4 ,he spoke of 8the paws of these blackguards in my bowels10 and said he would 8stop the scamp's knavery along with his breath40 ,for his master-work1 to which he devoted his later years1 ,browning made a peculiar selection4 ,it was a time when democracy was breaking into the world of culture1 in spite of all the opposition of academic authority4 ,we shall find poets and novelists in every country persisting in dealing with vulgar reality1 instead of with mythological demigods and romantic conquerors4 ,browning went for his story to an old scandal pamphlet he picked up in a second-hand bookshop of ,florence4 ,he might as well have picked up a scrap of a ,hearst newspaper from the gutter1 for it dealt with a sensational murder story1 what is called a 8crime of passion40 ,an elderly merchant in ,rome had killed his wife1 and at his trial he proved that she had run away with a young priest4 ,the priest maintained that the elopement had been a chaste one2 he was trying to save the girl from the cruelty of her husband4 ,browning1 in telling the story1 adopts the ultra-modern device of the open forum3 all sides shall have a hearing4 ,in 8,the ,ring and the ,book0 you read nine long narratives of the same events4 ,you hear ,half ,rome1 which sides with the husband2 then you hear the ,other ,half ,rome1 which sides with the wife4 ,you hear the husband1 the wife1 the young priest1 the lawyers for each side1 and the pope1 rendering judgment4 ,when you get through with all this reading you have learned several important lessons3 you have learned that life is a complicated thing1 and truth very difficult to arrive at2 you have learned that good and evil live side by side in the same human heart2 you have learned to think for yourself1 and not to believe everything you hear2 finally1 you have learned that the most sordid human events offer a potential literary masterpiece--requiring only a man of genius to penetrate the hearts of the persons involved6 ,,chapter ,,lxxi ,,official ,,pessimism ,in this writer's youth1 when he was struggling to earn a living in ,new ,york1 there was one magazine which was open to new ideas1 the 8,independent40 ,its literary editor was ,paul ,elmer ,more1 and he gave me a chance to write book reviews for him--and then1 alas6 decided that he could find other people whose writing he preferred4 ,mr4 ,more evolved into a critic1 and has published ,i don't know how many volumes of what he calls the 8,shelburne ,essays40 ,up to a few years ago1 when ,professor ,sherman made his appearance1 ,i used to say that ,more was the one literary conservative in ,america who was not intellectually contemptible2 the one man who combined scholarship with a perfectly definite and consistent point of view1 no sentimentality1 and no water-tight compartments in his brain4 ,in the third volume of the 8,shelburne ,essays0 ,mr4 ,more has one dealing with ,byron's 8,don ,juan40 ,i smile when ,i reflect with what contempt ,mr4 ,more would greet the proposition that he should read a modern writer as slangy1 as licentious1 and as popular as ,byron6 ,but 8,don ,juan0 was written a hundred years ago2 so it is a 8classic10 and ,mr4 ,more greets its author as the last of the great pessimists1 one who had the wit to recognize the futility of human life1 and the courage to speak his conclusions plainly4 ,things have changed since ,byron's day1 ,mr4 ,more explains4 8,we1 who have approached the consummation of the world's hope1 know that happiness and peace and the fulfilment of desires are about to settle down and brood for ever more over the lot of mankind40 ,this1 ,i had better explain1 is sarcasm on ,mr4 ,more's part4 ,he is irritated because modern scientific people have presumed to think that human problems can be solved4 ,he is so much irritated that he turns his essay on ,byron into a series of sneers at 8the new dispensation of official optimism40 ,for example1 this kind of thing3 ,next year1 or the next1 some divine invention shall come which will prove this melancholy of the poets to have been only a childish ignorance of man's sublimer destiny2 some discovery of a new element more wonderful than radium will render the ancient brooding over human feebleness a matter of laughter and astonishment2 some acceptance of the larger brotherhood of the race will wipe away all tears and bring down upon earth the fair dream of heaven1 a reality and a possession forever2 some new philosophy of the soul will convert the old poems of conflict into meaningless fables1 stale and unprofitable4 ,what is the meaning of this attitude of envenomed resentment at the idea of a hope for mankind8 ,we shall note it again and again among the poets and critics of the ancient regime--of what we may call 8the old dispensation of official pessimism40 ,it used to puzzle me that scholars and thinkers should be so malicious and perverted as to find pleasure in trampling upon human aspiration2 but after years of pondering ,i think ,i understand it4 ,these gentlemen are guests at a banquet1 who1 seeing the food too long delayed1 and despairing of anything better1 have filled their bellies with husks and straw2 and now1 when they are full1 and can no longer eat1 they see the good food coming to the table6 ,it was a perfectly natural thing for an ancient to be pessimistic4 ,he saw the world as a place of blind cruelty1 the battle-ground of forces which he did not understand2 and what guarantee could he have that the feeble intellect of man would ever tame these giants8 ,so he made for himself a philosophy of stern resignation1 and an art of beautiful but mournful despair4 ,the scholars and lovers of old things have identified themselves and their reputations with these ancient dignities and renunciations1 these tender and touching griefs2 and how shall they express their irritation when bumptious youth arises1 and proceeds to take charge of life1 to abolish pestilence and famine1 poverty1 war1 crime--and perhaps1 in the end1 even old age and death8 ,all this is preliminary to the introduction of another ,victorian poet2 one who moved me deeply in my youth1 and still holds my undimmed affection4 ,i would choose ,matthew ,arnold as the perfect exemplar of the 8classical0 attitude toward life2 that is1 resignation1 at once pathetic and heroic1 to the pitiful fate of mankind on earth4 ,listen to him at his best3 ,ah1 love1 let us be true ,to one another6 for the world1 which seems ,to lie before us like a land of dreams1 ,so various1 so beautiful1 so new1 ,hath really neither joy1 nor love1 nor light1 ,nor certitude1 nor peace1 nor help for pain2 ,and we are here as on a darkling plain ,swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight1 ,where ignorant armies clash by night4 ,the author of these lines was the son of a great teacher1 and therefore had no money4 ,he spent thirty years of his life as an inspector of schools2 a most pitiful destiny for a poet--traveling all over ,england to hear little children recite the list of the kings and the counties1 and tell the number of legs on a spider4 ,the fountain of his poetry dried up1 and he became a critic1 not merely of ,english letters but of ,english life2 in many ways the most radical and most intelligent critic that ,victorian ,england had4 ,he preached the gospel of sweetness and light2 also1 alas1 he went on the war-path against an infamous bill which was being agitated in ,parliament1 to permit a man to violate the old ,mosaic code by marrying the sister of his deceased wife6 ,matthew ,arnold insisted that it wasn't on account of ,moses1 but on account of a thing he called 8delicacy40 ,you cannot travel in ,victorian ,england without encountering phenomena like this4 ,you will be introduced to what appears to you a perfectly sane and self-contained and cultivated gentleman1 wearing exactly the correct frock-coat and tie2 but then1 you will happen to touch one of his tribal taboos1 and suddenly he will shriek1 and tear off his shirt1 and pull out a sharp knife1 and begin to slash himself1 and dance and whirl in a holy frenzy4 --,ogi1 wishing to make sure about this point1 goes to the source of all information on the subject of refinement in sex matters4 8,tell me10 he says1 8if you were to die1 would it be indelicate of me to marry one of your younger sisters80 ,mrs4 ,ogi1 who has never read the ,mosaic code1 and is not learned in the ,victorian lunacies1 looks at her husband with a puzzled expression4 8,i helped to raise my sisters10 she says4 8,surely any wife would want to leave her husband in safe hands60 ,,chapter ,,lxxii ,,god ,,save ,,the ,,people ,in the first half of this nineteenth century the ,british factory system came to maturity2 the capitalist class took charge of society1 and forced the working class into a condition of degradation hitherto unknown upon this planet4 ,the class struggle took definite shape--,chartist agitations and suffrage reform bills and ,corn ,law riots--and there arose in ,england a man of genius to tell about the wrongs of the people from his own first-hand experience4 ,his father was a wretchedly paid government clerk1 who had no acquaintance with the birth control movement4 ,charles ,dickens was one of eight half-starved children1 and went to work at the age of ten in a filthy1 ramshackle blacking factory4 ,the cruelties he there experienced stamped his soul for life1 and helped to make the radical movement of the ,english-speaking world4 ,later on he got a chance to go to school1 and became a court stenographer and newspaper reporter1 and saw the insides of ruling-class rascality4 ,he began writing humorous sketches which turned into the 8,pickwick ,papers10 and so at the age of twenty-four he was carried up into a golden cloud of glory4 ,world fame and success were his for the balance of his life2 but he never entirely forgot the meaning of his early days1 and remained to some extent an apostle of the poor and oppressed4 ,when ,i say that ,dickens is radical propaganda1 ,i do not mean merely that he wrote novel after novel exposing the abuses of his time1 the cruelties of the poor laws1 the horrors of the debtors' prisons1 the delays and corruptions of the courts1 the knaveries and imbecilities of politics4 ,i do not mean merely that he hated by instinct and ridiculed all through his life1 lawyers and judges and newspaper editors and preachers and priests of capitalist prosperity4 ,i mean something more deep and more fundamental than that3 ,i mean that the very selection of his themes and of his characters1 the whole environment and atmosphere of his novels1 is a piece of propaganda4 ,for ,dickens proceeds to force into the aristocratic and exclusive realms of art the revolutionary notion that the poor and degraded are equally as interesting as the rich and respectable4 ,we are invited1 not merely to laugh at the antics of illiterate and unrefined people1 as in ,shakespeare2 we are invited to enter into their hearts and minds1 to put ourselves in their place and actually live their experiences4 ,as reward for so doing1 we are offered treasures of laughter and tears and thrills4 ,i don't know how it is nowadays1 but in my boyhood1 which was some twenty years after ,dickens' death1 everybody read him--my rich relatives1 who read nothing else1 and my poor relatives1 broken-down ,southern aristocrats1 who read nothing else except the life of ,robert ,e4 ,lee4 ,and then in ,new ,york1 the people ,i met in boarding-houses and third-rate lodgings--all shuddered over ,bill ,sykes and wept over ,paul ,dombey and laughed over ,mr4 ,pickwick and ,sam ,weller4 ,dickens was1 and remained to the end1 from the point of view of leisure-class culture1 a quite vulgar person4 ,he took a naive delight in his worldly triumphs1 and counted the success of his books by sales and money4 ,he was a born actor1 and loved to shine before the public2 devising dramatic readings of his works1 and taking endless tours1 both in ,england and ,america1 gathering great sums of money--though of course not to be compared with the moving picture fortunes of our day4 ,it was a time when audiences liked to shed tears out loud1 and ,dickens liked to join them2 he has all the tremolo stops in his organ1 and piles on sentiment until we shudder4 ,fastidious and literary persons have now made it fashionable to declare that ,dickens is unreadable2 but the people have read him1 and his sentiment as well as his humor are a part of our racial heritage1 and one of the fountain-heads of the ,socialist movement4 ,his books are a five million word reiteration of the old ,chartist hymn-- ,when wilt thou save the people8 ,o ,god of mercy6 when8 ,not kings and lords1 but nations6 ,not thrones and crowns1 but men6 ,dickens himself was entirely instinctive in his class feelings2 his mind was a typical middle-class muddle1 and his remedy for the ills he pictured was kindness and poor law reform and charity bazaars--hanging paper garlands about the neck of the tiger of capitalism4 ,the ,british masses needed time in which to find out how to bind and destroy this beast2 but the first service was to proclaim the fact that this capitalist world is a world impossible for sensitive and decent human beings to endure--a world in which justice has become the ,circumlocution ,office1 and truth has become ,thomas ,gradgrind1 and ,christianity has become ,mr4 ,pecksniff and ,uriah ,heep4 ,,chapter ,,lxxiii ,,the ,,collector ,,of ,,snobs ,emerson1 commenting upon the old saying that 8,no man is a hero to his valet10 put the question3 8,what hero ever had a valet80 ,this goes to prove that ,emerson was not a reader of popular fiction2 for if he had been following the novels of ,william ,makepeace ,thackeray in 8,fraser's ,magazine10 he would have known that it is impossible for any hero to be without a valet4 ,in ,dickens we enter into the lives of the poor1 and in ,thackeray we enter into the lives of the rich1 and it is hard for us to decide which class has the greater claim to our pity4 ,thackeray was bom in ,india1 his father being a government official4 ,they tried to educate him at ,cambridge1 but it didn't take1 because he was incorrigibly desultory1 a big1 good-natured fellow who loved eating and drinking and gambling and good fellowship--everything1 in short1 but hard work4 ,he early lost his fortune1 trying to publish a paper2 then he had to work1 and became a contributor to 8,punch10 and developed a faculty for burlesque verses and satiric sketches4 ,in my youth there was general complaint that ,thackeray was 8a cynic40 ,let us settle that question at the outset2 he was one of the most sentimental souls that ever walked about the world in trousers4 ,but he had a pair of eyes1 and he saw in the fashionable society around him a hundred different varieties of snobs2 he collected them into a 8,book of ,snobs0--each one like a butterfly stuck on a pin4 ,he went on to write a series of novels1 full of scoldings varied by ridicule of human vanity and folly4 ,his first great work remains entirely neglected by the critics4 8,barry ,lyndon0 is a marvelous piece of sustained irony1 the story of a capable scoundrel1 who makes his way in the great world by being just a little sharper than the people he meets1 and a little more honest with himself4 ,you recall how ,milton1 a devout and orthodox ,puritan1 could not refrain from making ,satan heroic1 because ,satan was a rebel and ,milton was another4 ,we notice the same phenomenon in this case of ,barry ,lyndon1 who does every kind of rascal thing2 yet the fact remains1 he is living by his wits1 he is surviving in a world of privilege and power1 and ,thackeray is secretly thrilled by him4 ,that doubtless accounts for the unpopularity of the story2 for the average novel reader likes to have his villains labeled1 and not to mix his blacks and his whites4 ,the instinctive rebel in ,thackeray shows himself still more plainly in 8,vanity ,fair40 ,this time the villain is ,becky ,sharp1 an utterly heartless intriguer1 selling her sex for money and power4 ,nevertheless1 she is a woman 8on her own10 a little tiger-cat backed into a corner1 with all the world poking sticks at her2 she fights back1 and gets the best of her enemies1 and ,thackeray cannot help making her the most interesting figure in the book4 ,as a respectable ,victorian sentimentalist1 he did his best to provide us with a foil for ,becky1 giving us ,amelia ,sedley1 the perfect1 submissive1 adoring female4 ,the daughter of a wealthy merchant1 ,amelia has never had a moment's discomfort in her life4 ,she is a model of the ,victorian virtues2 she honors and serves the male members of her family1 no matter how selfish and worthless they may be4 ,she has the brains of a medium-sized rabbit1 and after we have got to know her1 we understand why ,victorian gentlemen sought refuge in interesting mistresses4 ,it has been said that in ,thackeray's novels all the good people are fools and all the evil people are clever4 ,beatrix ,esmond1 the one woman who rivals ,becky ,sharp in interest1 is a cold1 proud beauty1 without even ,becky's excuse of poverty2 she schemes to marry a duke1 and when he is killed in a duel1 she seeks to become the mistress of a prince1 and ends ignominously as the wife of a tutor and the widow of a bishop4 ,the ,anti-,socialist ,union of ,great ,britain1 which exists to fight the 8,reds10 should begin its labors by excluding from all libraries these devastating pictures of the manners and morals of the ruling classes4 ,i do not mean by this that ,thackeray was consciously a ,socialist2 quite the contrary4 ,as a member of the ruling classes1 he pleads with them to be worthy of their high and agreeable destiny4 ,how completely he believed in the 8gentleman0 you can see by the treatment he gives to his hero1 ,pendennis1 a perfectly worthless young idler1 and to ,major ,pendennis1 a cynical and depraved old rascal4 ,thackeray condones the former and loves and pities the latter1 and expects us to weep over the closing picture of the old martinet1 having lost his fortune1 obliged to dwell in a charity home with other indigent parasites4 ,i speak for one reader1 who could have borne with entire equanimity to see the major at work on the rock-pile1 accompanied by all the other idle clubmen of ,london4 ,thackeray in his writings rebelled against some conventions of his world1 but in his every-day life he was as helpless as ,amelia ,sedley4 ,his wife became insane1 so he fell victim of that superstition which condemns the innocent partner in such a marriage to life-long celibacy4 ,thackeray1 enduring this infliction1 seemed heroic to his friends1 and pitiful to us4 ,he left it to a woman novelist1 ,george ,eliot1 to set the precedent of defiance to this especially idiotic tribal taboo4 ,george ,eliot loved ,george ,henry ,lewes1 who had an insane wife1 and she went and lived with ,lewes for twenty-four years1 until his death1 and told all the world about it4 ,thus we have one pleasant detail to record concerning ,victorian ,england4 ,in his early days ,thackeray had lived poorly1 because he had to2 but later he acquired a taste for expensive food1 and especially drink1 and thereby ruined his health and died at the age of fifty-two4 ,this1 of course1 was devoutly concealed by his daughters1 and explains the fact that no biography was published4 ,like other conventional gentlemen1 he felt bound to provide incomes for these daughters1 so he wasted his time trying to get some government sinecure1 first in the post office1 and then in the diplomatic service--the very kind of thing he exposed in his stories4 ,he took to lecturing1 following in the foot-steps of ,dickens1 but not enjoying the work1 because he had nothing of the showman in him1 but on the contrary the ,english gentleman's intense reserve4 ,all this is what is called 8gossip10 and is supposed to have nothing to do with the works of a great writer4 ,i record my belief1 that the character and life experiences of an artist make his works of art1 in the same way that a mold makes the image out of the liquid metal4 ,the quickest route to the understanding of any novelist or poet is to know these personal details about him2 and above all1 his relationship to those who paid him the money which kept him alive from day to day4 ,whether he conforms1 or whether he rebels1 these money-forces condition a man's life4 ,,chapter ,,lxxiv ,,arts ,,and ,,crafts ,capitalist industrialism may be indicted on economic grounds because it is wasteful1 and on moral grounds because it is dishonest2 also it may be indicted upon esthetic grounds because it is ugly4 ,the artistic temperament objects to it for this last reason1 and there were some among the artists who set out to make war upon it4 ,john ,ruskin was the son of a wealthy ,english wine merchant2 he devoted himself to the study of art1 and sought to carry it back to the simple standards of the ,christian primitives4 ,he became a lecturer and teacher1 and founded a college for the sons of workingmen at ,oxford4 ,we find him leading groups of ,british university students out to do manual labor upon the roads--a pathetic effort to be useful and honest in a world of cheating and exploiting4 ,in the end ,ruskin went out of his mind1 as a result of brooding over the ugliness and cruelty of his country's industrial system4 ,among his disciples was one who is entitled to a place in these pages1 because he was a working artist who strove to create beauty upon a sound social basis2 also because he was a ,socialist who tried to teach the principles of brotherhood and solidarity to a world of individualist and capitalist art4 ,william ,morris was born in #ahcd2 his parents were wealthy and he inherited a comfortable income4 ,his mother designed him for a bishop1 but he soon outgrew that career4 ,he parted with his ,christian faith on the intellectual side1 but he still kept its emotions2 he was a passionate lover of the ,middle ,ages1 and of the ,gothic spirit in art4 ,he managed to persuade himself that the ,middle ,ages had been happy1 and that the craftsmen in those days had been free to make what they loved without reference to the profit motive4 ,so all his life he yearned back to those good old days1 and made them a standard by which to judge everything bad in his own time4 ,he was a simple1 whole-souled fellow1 who loved to do things with his hands1 and possessed extraordinary aptitude for all the arts2 he learned to paint and to carve and to decorate1 and to do every kind of hand labor that contained any slightest element of artistry4 ,he looked out upon modern industrialism and saw wholesale1 cheap production of ugly and commonplace and unsubstantial goods4 ,he hated it with his whole soul1 and attributed all the moral evils of the time to the fact that the workers had lost their love for their job and their pride in craftsmanship4 ,he wanted a home to live in1 and because no architect knew how to design a beautiful home1 ,morris became his own architect2 because he could not buy any beautiful furniture1 he designed his own furniture and had a carpenter make it4 ,out of this came the establishment of a firm to do such labor1 and so grew the ,arts and ,crafts movement4 ,that brought ,morris into touch with workingmen1 a very dangerous thing2 because under our present social system it is better for a gentleman to stay in his own class1 and not find out what is happening to the workers4 ,morris was drawn into politics--beginning1 curiously enough1 with an effort to save old churches and other buildings from being 8restored0 according to modern taste4 ,before long we find him evolved into one of the leading ,victorian rebels1 a founder of the ,social-,democratic ,federation1 speaking afternoons and evenings at soap-box meetings4 ,the critics lamented this1 just as they lamented the political career of ,john ,milton3 it seemed such a waste of time for a great poet and artist4 ,but it was all a part of ,william ,morris's life2 if he had not been the kind of man he was1 he could not have produced the kind of art he did4 ,in between all his other labors he wrote poetry2 it flowed out of him freely1 wonder tales of all sorts1 having to do with those old times which he loved1 and the beautiful things which he imagined happening there4 ,it is very good narrative verse1 and all young people ought to read 8,the ,earthly ,paradise02 also they ought to read 8,the ,dream of ,john ,ball10 and learn what happened to the social rebels in the old days4 ,morris's most popular piece of prose writing is 8,news from ,nowhere40 ,he had read ,bellamy's ,utopia1 8,looking ,backward10 and he did not like it1 because ,bellamy was an ,american1 and had organized and systematized the world4 ,nobody was going to organize and systematize ,william ,morris2 he set about to make his own ,utopia1 in which everything is placid and commonplace1 healthy as the animals are healthy--but also abominably dull4 ,says ,mrs4 ,ogi3 8,you are discussing one of the classics of your movement1 and you know what the critics all say3 the ,socialists ought to begin by agreeing on what they want40 8,i know10 says ,ogi1 8and ,i'm sorry to disappoint them4 ,but there are many different kinds of people in the world1 and some of each kind in our movement4 ,i am a ,socialist who believes in machinery1 and has no interest in any world that does not develop machine power to the greatest possible extent4 ,we are like people traveling through a tunnel2 it is dark and smoky1 and some want to turn back1 but ,i want to go through to the other end40 8,morris and ,ruskin said the other end was in hell40 8,yes1 but ,i think their eyes were blinded by the smoke4 ,what is wrong is not with machinery1 but with the private ownership of machinery4 ,there is no reason why machines should not make beautiful and substantial things1 instead of making ugly and dishonest things--except the fact that machines are owned by people who have no interest except to make a profit out of the product4 ,a thing is not less beautiful because there are millions of other things exactly like it in the world4 ,that is just a snobbish notion1 and ,morris should have learned the lesson from any field of daisies40 ,here is ,sherwood ,anderson telling the story of his life4 ,he is one ,american who does not like machinery1 and he has good reason2 he has worked in factories1 and he knows4 ,he agrees with ,morris that the monotony of the machine destroys the initiative and therefore the morals of the workers2 they cannot create1 and so they tell smutty stories4 ,but you note that ,anderson is not a ,socialist1 and has not the vision of what a factory might be if it were democratically owned and managed by the workers4 ,the workers will then be very proud of their beautiful machines1 they will learn to understand and tend them all1 and administer the politics of the great industry of which the machines are a part4 ,the individual worker will travel from the factories to the harvest fields and back1 as many varieties of labor as he fancies4 ,and anyhow he won't have to work but three or four hours a day1 and the rest of the time he can develop his faculties by making verses1 or playing music1 or staging dramas1 or baseball games1 or whatever he pleases4 ,and every year the machines will become more automatic1 until some day the only labor of man will consist of pressing a few buttons every morning4 ,whether you like that or not depends entirely upon whether or not you have developed your brains1 and want to develop them still further4 ,,chapter ,,lxxv ,,seeing ,,america ,,first ,the spirit of ,john ,milton and ,john ,bunyan crossed the ,atlantic ,ocean and settled in ,massachusetts1 and the spirit of their enemies crossed the ,atlantic ,ocean and settled in ,virginia4 ,they made two civilizations1 and these civilizations fought a civil war in the new world1 just as they had done in the old4 ,for the first two hundred years the colonists were busy killing ,indians and clearing the wilderness1 so they had little time for art4 ,they had to break their ties with the old country2 and just as we saw ,voltaire finding it easier to rebel in religion and politics than in the field of culture1 so in ,america we shall find that the ,declaration of ,independence was signed a long time before any artist was bold enough to revolt from ,british standards of taste4 ,the first ,american writers were concerned to handle ,american themes as they imagined ,addison and ,steele and ,burke and ,dryden would have done4 ,the first writer to escape this ,british tradition did so1 not by making an ,american tradition1 but by ascending into the universal and transcendental4 ,ralph ,waldo ,emerson read ,goethe and ,swedenborg and ,plato and the ,hindus1 and became a ,yankee mystic and democratic saint4 ,he was the son of a ,unitarian clergyman1 and followed in his father's footsteps4 ,but early in life he realized that he no longer believed the special doctrines which gave meaning to the communion service1 so he stood up in his church1 and very quietly and simply told about his new convictions1 and went out into the world to earn his living as an independent lecturer4 ,puritanism was now two hundred years ancient1 but the temper of it still survived in ,new ,england2 that is1 people were painfully anxious to do right1 and looked up to teachers who had studied such problems4 ,they were willing to gather in meeting places1 and be advised what they should do1 and to pay a modest stipend to the adviser4 ,so this young rebel was able to earn the simple living which sufficed everyone in ,concord in those days4 ,he studied the world's best literature in several languages1 he thought earnestly and wrote honestly1 and was a model of dignity1 kindness1 and wisdom4 ,his most popular lectures are known to us as 8,emerson's ,essays40 ,i read them in youth1 and owe to them a tribute of gratitude4 ,first of all1 they teach self-reliance1 the most fundamental of the pioneer virtues4 ,it was by self-reliant men that ,new ,england was made2 and in this atmosphere of extreme individualism1 it was impossible for a philosopher to value the equally fundamental virtue of solidarity4 ,emerson has no conception of a co-operative world1 and believes that he has done his duty to his fellows by courtesy and the speaking of the truth4 ,the essays are formless1 consisting of scattered paragraphs and random reflections4 ,they are not always easy to interpret1 because they soar into regions of the absolute1 where every statement is equally as untrue as it is true4 ,the bearings depend upon the application2 so that we have to know ,emerson's whole thought1 and his life4 ,applying the highest tests1 we find his doctrine a little thin and his example a little tame4 ,he lived through stern times1 and while his voice was always on the right side1 we feel that he might have been more prompt and more vigorous4 ,his optimism is beautiful1 but a trifle lacking in content4 ,we want a man to put more reality into his writings1 to show us how to deal with the grim and hateful facts of life4 ,emerson makes a cryptic statement-- ,i am owner of the sphere1 ,of the seven stars and the solar year1 ,of ,caesar's hand1 and ,plato's brain1 ,of ,lord ,christ's heart1 and ,shakespeare's strain4 ,we say3 yes1 perhaps2 but most of us find it difficult to get the ,shakespeare strain to come out of us4 ,likewise1 we do not know quite how to reconcile ,lord ,christ with ,caesar2 nor can we always get ,lord ,christ to agree with ,shakespeare--watch the scoffing this book will cause among the critics6 ,you see how these mystic utterances are liable to be misunderstood2 and how it was possible for the transcendentalist movement1 which produced ,emerson1 to produce also the horrors of 8,science and ,health with ,key to the ,scriptures40 ,on the other hand1 when ,emerson deals with justice and liberty in ,new ,england he can deliver as heavy a punch as ,byron3 for example1 his 8,boston ,hymn10 discussing the question of compensation for the enfranchised slaves-- ,pay ransom to the owner1 ,and fill the bag to the brim4 ,who is the owner8 ,the slave is owner1 ,and ever was4 ,pay him4 ,i have discussed these lines in 8,the ,book of ,life10 and suggested how much cheaper it would have been to pay the owners than to fight the ,civil ,war4 ,i overlooked the fact that this 8,boston ,hymn0 was written after the ,civil ,war was on4 ,emerson1 combining ,yankee economy with wise humanity1 had all along been advocating the sensible course of freeing the slaves by purchase4 ,we think of this ,concord sage as a philosopher1 and less often as a poet4 ,but he was a great poet2 at his best he is among the immortals4 ,not only is there wisdom and moral beauty in his verse2 there is love of nature1 and there is passion4 ,people sometimes died young in ,concord1 just as they did in old ,england and in ,greece1 and poets poured their sorrow into song4 ,emerson's 8,threnody10 written upon the death of his five-year-old son1 is lacking in all the classical paraphernalia of ,milton's 8,lycidas10 but it is full of such beauty and fervor as are native to our country1 and ,i see no reason why we ,americans should devote all our time to the worship of foreign gods4 ,if our colleges must teach the classics1 to the exclusion of modern work1 let them at least teach our native classics1 which are easier for us to understand4 ,i propose a motto for our youth3 ,see ,emerson first6 ,,chapter ,,lxxvi ,,the ,,age ,,of ,,innocence ,america at this time was an overgrown youthful body1 ill-supplied with mind2 and a few ardent believers in culture set out to fill this need4 ,henry ,wadsworth ,longfellow was a student at ,bowdoin ,college1 and the faculty decided that ,cervantes and ,dante and ,goethe and ,moliere and ,hugo ought to be more than names to the ,american people2 somebody ought to study these languages and literatures1 and pass them on4 ,they gave ,longfellow a traveling scholarship for three years1 and he went abroad and collected things romantic and beautiful and innocent in ,spain and ,italy and ,germany and ,france1 and came home and spent the next twenty or thirty years in teaching them1 first at ,bowdoin and then at ,harvard4 ,he translated poetry1 and also wrote poetry of his own1 very much resembling the translations4 ,at the age of forty-seven he became a poet exclusively1 and lived to be a seventy-five-year-old boy1 just as romantic and beautiful and innocent as when he had first gone out to gather nourishment for the hungry young soul of ,america4 ,longfellow was a moralist1 and it was his purpose to draw useful conclusions in his poetry4 ,he would start by looking at the planet ,mars1 and end by proving that human beings must be brave and self-reliant3 not that there is anything remotely suggesting such qualities in a 8red planet10 but because this planet happens to be named after the ,god of war4 ,he would look at a ship on the stocks1 and draw conclusions about the government of his country4 ,he would look at the village blacksmith1 and thank him for a lesson in diligence and sobriety4 ,that kind of poetry has now gone out of fashion4 ,the young intellectuals of ,america are no longer romantic and beautiful and innocent1 and they say that ,longfellow is propaganda4 ,but you know my thesis by now--theirs is just as much propaganda1 only it is on the other side4 ,what ,longfellow called art is incitement towards diligence and sobriety1 while what our young sophisticates call art is incitement toward going to hell in a hurry4 ,anything that pictures the delights of the senses and the breakdown of the will is art2 but poor ,longfellow1 in an unguarded moment1 had the misfortune to exclaim that ,life is real6 ,life is earnest6 ,and the grave is not its goal4 ,these two lines have been enough to damn him in the eyes of a whole generation of coterie-litterateurs4 ,turning the pages of the art which ,longfellow brought back from ,europe1 there flashes to mind a memory of the days when ,i also traveled in ,europe1 collecting culture4 ,it was in ,naples1 a soft moonlit evening in early spring1 and ,i stood before a great statue1 noting its dim outlines4 ,a figure slipped up beside me1 and a soft voice began to whisper1 offering to take me to a place where there were beautiful boys3 8beautiful1 sweet ,neapolitan boys10 ,i remember the phrase4 ,i wonder what the traveling idealist from ,bowdoin ,college would have made of such a whisper in the moonlight6 ,that was a dozen years ago1 and we in ,america have learned something about ,europe since then4 ,i am the last person in the world who would desire a return to the age of innocence1 or advocate1 even for the young1 the blinking of grim and hideous facts4 ,but this ,i do believe3 a time will come1 and not so far in the future1 when ,american youth will react from the hip-pocket flask and petting-party stage of culture4 ,with full knowledge of vice and disease1 it will choose virtue and health1 because these are the truly interesting and worth while things1 and the truly great themes of art4 ,pending the arrival of such a time1 ,i record my notion1 that poetry does not cease to be great because it is declaimed by a million schoolboys4 8,to be or not to be10 and 8,friends1 ,romans1 countrymen10 are great poetry1 even though we personally are tired of them4 ,if it be permitted to tell a story in verse1 then assuredly 8,the ,wreck of the ,hesperus0 is a tragic story told in vivid and stirring language4 ,i say that anyone who does not know this for a great ballad simply does not know what a ballad is4 ,you may spend your time digging in ,percy's 8,reliques0 and other old volumes1 and find things less easy to read1 but nothing more worth reading4 ,i go farther and admit that when ,i was young ,i found delight in 8,paul ,revere's ,ride0 and 8,hiawatha0 and 8,evangeline10 and ,i don't believe that kind of young person is yet entirely extinct in ,america4 ,,chapter ,,lxxvii ,a ,,snow-,,bound ,,saint ,the ,puritans1 having been driven from ,england by religious persecution1 set to work in their ,new ,england to persecute others4 ,among their victims was a ,massachusetts ,quaker by the name of ,whittier1 who was deprived of the franchise for daring to petition the town council for liberty to preach4 ,undaunted by the punishment1 this pioneer raised a family of ten stalwart children in the ,quaker faith1 and became the great-great-grandfather of a ,quaker poet1 who has received but scant appreciation from the literary critics of his country4 ,john ,greenleaf ,whittier was born in #ahjg1 one of a large family1 and grew up to toil upon a rocky farm4 ,he got his education in a country school1 and his first glimpse of poetry from a wandering ,scotchman who spent a night at the farm-house1 and who sang the songs of ,robert ,burns4 ,the frail and sensitive lad who sat and listened enraptured was to grow up to be the ,burns of ,new ,england2 a saintly ,burns1 having the ,scotch poet's energy and rebellious ardor1 but not his destroying vices4 ,independence1 hard work1 and religion were the three factors in ,whittier's environment4 ,he wanted to go to an academy to continue his education1 but there was no money1 so he earned it by work as a cobbler4 ,you remember the sneer of the ,tory critic--8,back to your gallipots1 ,mr4 ,keats02 and here we find a critic satirizing our ,quaker poet3 8the wax still sticking to his fingers' ends40 ,you remember how ,keats fell in love with an elegant young lady2 ,whittier became a country editor and presumed to aspire to the daughter of a local judge1 and was spurned1 and went back home1 ill1 poverty-stricken and humiliated4 ,but he continued to study and write verses1 and found another job as editor1 and a prospect of success in politics4 ,then came the crisis in his life2 the anti-slavery movement was making its first feeble beginnings in ,new ,england1 and ,whittier became the friend of ,william ,lloyd ,garrison1 and spent sleepless nights wrestling with the angel of duty4 ,at the age of twenty-seven he made the choice2 he threw away his career1 and spent his hard-won savings to print and send out five hundred copies of an address in opposition to chattel slavery4 ,we who in these days are daring to challenge wage slavery1 and are witnessing mobbings and jailings and torturing for the cause1 must not forget that back in the #ahcj's this gentle ,quaker poet was stoned and nearly lynched in ,massachusetts1 and mobbed again and had his office burned about his head in ,philadelphia4 ,he suffered from ill health all his life1 yet he never gave up the cause4 ,he suffered from poverty2 having a mother and sisters dependent upon him1 he was too poor ever to marry4 ,he continued to edit papers1 he wrote and spoke against slavery1 and composed verses which were taken up and recopied by constantly increasing numbers of newspapers4 ,many of these verses are now found in his collected works1 and one who reads them is surprised by their uniformly high quality1 not merely the fervor and energy1 but the beauty of expression and the treasures of imagination which this self-taught country boy poured into his propaganda4 ,you recall ,browning's rebuke to the old poet ,wordsworth1 8,the ,lost ,leader40 ,here is ,whittier's 8,ichabod10 rebuking ,daniel ,webster for his apostasy to the cause of freedom-- ,all else is gone1 from those great eyes ,the soul has fled3 ,when faith is lost1 when honor dies1 ,the man is dead6 ,whittier was not among the fanatics of the movement2 on the contrary1 he was a shrewd politician1 interested in moving the minds of his fellows and in getting something done4 ,he helped in the forming of the ,abolition party1 which later became the ,free ,soil party1 and then the ,republican party of ,lincoln4 ,as a ,quaker he could not support the war1 yet he managed to write verses about it--for example1 when ,stonewall ,jackson was unwilling to kill old ,barbara ,frietchie for hanging out the ,stars and ,stripes in ,frederick4 ,it is probable that this incident never happened1 but it made a very popular poem4 ,whittier never went to college1 he never traveled in ,europe to acquire a foreign tone2 he remained an ,american peasant4 ,he voiced their thoughts in their own language1 and they have cherished him1 and will some day force the critics to give him his due place4 ,if you are looking for ballads made out of native material1 read the story of old ,skipper ,ireson1 who roused the fury of his villagers by sailing away from a ship in distress3 ,old ,floyd ,ireson1 for his hard heart ,tarred and feathered and carried in a cart ,by the women of ,marblehead4 ,if you are looking for ,american sentiment1 for simple1 untouched democracy1 read 8,maud ,muller40 ,above all1 if you want the inner essence of ,new ,england farm life1 the mingled harshness and beauty of its body1 and the mingled sternness and charm of its spirit1 read 8,snow-,bound0 ,,chapter ,,lxxviii ,,puritanism ,,in ,,decay ,the ,puritans of ,massachusetts1 having killed the ,indians and fenced the farms and built the towns1 settled into the routine of getting one another's money4 ,the more enterprising ones moved ,west1 where there was more money2 the others sunk into slow decay4 ,puritanism came to mean1 not aggressive virtue1 but negative avoidance4 ,before it passed away entirely1 it produced a man of genius who was of it enough to know it thoroughly1 yet sufficiently out of it to be able to embody it in art4 ,nathaniel ,hawthorne was born in ,salem1 a port which had once been prosperous1 but had lost in competition with the great cities4 ,it was a mournful place1 living in the memory of its past1 which included the drowning and hanging of witches1 a frenzy of religious terror in which an ancestor of ,hawthorne had been a persecuting judge4 ,one of this judge's victims had put a curse upon him1 and the novelist pictures himself1 playfully1 as the last sad relic of this curse4 ,he was a solitary man1 born to poverty1 shy1 aloof and obscure4 ,recognition did not come until the middle forties1 and meantime he lived in ancient1 lonely houses1 staying indoors by day and wandering the streets by night4 ,he had no political sense1 no social sense2 events in the world outside meant little--he lived in the past4 ,yet1 strangely enough1 he did not accept the ideas of this past4 ,he had nothing of the robust ,tory fervor of ,sir ,walter ,scott2 he was a modern man1 and a quiet1 skeptical humor shines through his pages4 ,what had happened was that his faith had dried up1 and nothing else had come to take its place2 so there he was1 not knowing why1 or how1 or to what end4 ,he wrote elaborate diaries1 full of minute details about the things which happened hour by hour2 things which only a child would consider worth recording4 ,he would produce and publish a sketch in which1 with really beautiful art1 he would describe the sensations of walking about the streets of ,salem on a rainy night1 and how the lights shone in the puddles--yellow lights of the street-lamps and blue and green lights from the drug-stores4 ,he gathered strange legends of old-time people1 living terror-haunted lives1 driven to sin by the very desperation of their efforts to avoid it4 ,the pangs of conscience are ,hawthorne's 8local color0 and artistic tradition2 he knows them in every detail1 but he himself is not under their spell--they are like bric--brac and objects of art which he collects4 8,twice-,told ,tales0 was the title of his first volume1 and this1 you see1 prepares us for conscious literary artifice4 ,then we have 8,mosses from an ,old ,manse0 which promises mournfulness and moldiness1 desolation and decay4 ,then 8,the ,house of the ,seven ,gables10 the hiding place of an old and dying family haunted by a curse4 8,the ,scarlet ,letter0 brought its author instant recognition1 and is considered by many critics ,america's most authentic masterpiece of fiction4 ,a young married woman in the old-time witch-hunting ,salem has yielded to adulterous love for a young clergyman4 ,a child is born1 and the mother is publicly accused1 and exhibited upon the scaffold1 with the letter 8,a0 embroidered in scarlet cloth upon her dress4 ,she will not reveal the name of her lover1 and so the young clergyman escapes obloquy1 but is haunted by that sense of guilt which is the principal product of ,puritanism in decay4 ,the 8eternal triangle10 you see2 but it differs from other triangles in that it is not a story of passion1 but of punishment4 ,we do not see the guilty love in the days of its happiness1 but only in the days of its remorse4 ,as in all ,hawthorne's stories1 we meet1 not people who are acting1 but people who are looking back upon actions long since committed4 ,this is one kind of art1 and ,i admit the greatness of 8,the ,scarlet ,letter0 as a piece of technique4 ,but we are here discussing art works as human and social products2 and ,i point out1 as in the case of so many other tragedies1 how temporary and unsubstantial is the ground upon which it rests4 ,the ethical basis of 8,the ,scarlet ,letter0 is the conviction that marriage is indissoluble1 and that a young woman who has been given in marriage to an elderly man1 and finds herself unhappy1 is bound by the laws of ,god to remain in the bonds of that unhappy marriage4 ,but suppose1 for the sake of argument1 that the ideas of mankind should undergo a change2 suppose we should come to the conviction that a young woman who finds herself married to an elderly man whom she does not love1 and who conceives an intense and enduring passion for a younger man1 and desires to have children by that younger man--suppose we should decide that this woman1 in remaining with the older and unloved man1 and denying life to children by the younger man1 is committing a crime against posterity1 violating a fundamental law upon which race progress depends8 ,you can see that in that case 8,the ,scarlet ,letter0 would become entirely archaic1 an object of curiosity mingled with repugnance4 ,the ,american government honored this eminently respectable novelist by making him1 first a gauger of customs1 and then its consul to ,liverpool4 ,he was a prematurely old man then1 and fled from the cold fogs of ,england to ,rome--which he liked no better4 ,but he patiently collected information concerning ,roman antiquities1 and composed a novel called 8,the ,marble ,faun10 which is dutifully read as a guide book by all school-marms visiting the ,eternal ,city4 ,how well adapted this ,puritan genius was to interpret the ,latin world1 you may judge from the fact that he was shocked by nude statues1 and could not see why sculptors continued to overlook the necessity for marble clothing4 ,that skin was made before clothing1 and may continue to be worn after clothing is forgotten1 is a fact which did not occur to this traveler from ,salem4 ,he came back to pass his last days in an ,america torn by the agonies of the ,civil ,war4 ,he was a ,democrat by force of inertia1 and had written a campaign biography of the genial and bibulous ,president ,pierce4 ,he had no understanding of the war1 nor of the new ,america which was to be born from it4 ,in these last pathetic days he reminds us of the poor old ,tory1 ,sir ,walter ,scott1 facing the ,reform ,bill and the ,chartist riots and 8the country mined below our feet40 ,i plead with artists to step ahead of the procession in their youth1 so that in their old age4 they may not be left so pitifully far behind4 ,,chapter ,,lxxix ,,the ,,angel ,,israfel ,the ,puritans who settled ,massachusetts believed that happiness was to be found in the repressing of the 8carnal nature40 ,the ,cavaliers who settled ,maryland and ,virginia believed in enjoyment1 and rode their passions at a gallop4 ,it was appropriate that these ,cavaliers should give to ,america an artist who taught that sensuous beauty is a mystic revelation of ,god1 and that poetry must be music1 to the exclusion of intellect and moral sense4 ,a ,maryland general's son ran away and married a young actress1 and these two lived a wretched1 hand-to-mouth existence1 and died in a garret1 leaving three infants4 ,one of the three was named ,edgar ,poe1 and our first glimpse of him shows a nurse feeding him upon a 8sugar-tit0 soaked in gin4 ,a little later we find him adopted by a sentimental lady named ,allan1 and made into a kind of drawing-room pet1 taught to pledge toasts in drink4 ,he was an exquisite little fellow1 proud1 sensitive and self-willed2 and in his early training we note the seeds of all his later misery4 ,he began writing poetry in childhood1 and we still read verses which he composed in his 'teens4 ,he was sent to the ,university of ,virginia1 where along with rich men's sons he gambled and drank4 ,he deserted the ,university1 quarreled with his benefactors1 and enlisted in the army4 ,they got him out and sent him to ,west ,point1 which is famous for having graduated a number of soldiers1 and for having failed to graduate two artists1 ,edgar ,allan ,poe and ,james ,mc,neill ,whistler4 ,poe wrote verses and drank brandy with his room-mates1 and finally set about to get himself expelled from a life which he hated4 ,so here he was at the age of twenty-two1 a poet1 a rebel and a drunkard4 ,he had eighteen years more to live1 and during that time his life was one long agony of struggle4 ,he had brilliant gifts1 his work found recognition1 and he got many editorial positions1 but could not keep them4 ,he wandered from city to city1 quarreled with both enemies and friends1 and exhibited all those forms of evasion and dishonesty for which alcohol and opium are responsible4444 8,how much shall ,i say about the great curse of the ,south80 asks ,ogi4 8,say it all10 says his wife4 8,i recall those old ,maryland and ,virginia homesteads1 dark and dusty1 falling to decay2 a few sticks of furniture1 moth-eaten hangings1 and silent1 pale1 in-door men and women--the former drinking1 the latter taking drugs and patent medicines4 ,i remember also the well-to-do families in the towns1 the wild young cursing blades1 and the old topers with trembling hands4 ,i remember the uncle who shot off his head in the park1 and that other uncle1 with a distinguished naval record1 who lived into old age without ever being sober4 ,i remember my own father1 and my childhood and youth of struggle to save him4 ,all these men were kind and gentle1 idealistic1 charming in manners--0 8,i1 too1 had an uncle10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi2 8the tenderest heart you ever knew4 ,he drank because he could not stand the life he saw about him1 the unsolvable race problem1 the mass of ignorance and brutality4 ,i would get his bottle away from him and hide it1 and then in his torment he would go so far as a #8damn'2 but ,i never saw him so drunk that he failed to apologize for such a word40 ,we must take ,poe as one of the pitiful victims of these customs2 we must understand that his virtues were his own1 while his vices were fed to him in a 8sugar-tit40 ,of all ,american poets up to this time his was the greatest genius2 his was the true fire1 the energy1 the vision--and for the most part it was wasted and lost4 ,it was wasted1 not merely because he got drunk1 because he was always on the verge of starvation1 because he was chained to slavery1 and had to write pot-boilers under the orders of men with routine or mercenary minds2 it was wasted also because he was a victim of perverse theories about art and life4 ,he began1 as a child1 with imitations of ,byron1 and then came under the spell of ,coleridge's disorderly genius4 ,we might take a great part of ,poe's work1 just as we took 8,kubla ,khan10 and show how his talent goes into the portrayal of every imaginable kind of ruin1 terror and despair4 ,we cannot say to what extent ,poe's art theories were the product of his vices1 and to what extent the vices were the product of the theories4 ,after he left ,west ,point1 and was starving in ,baltimore1 he met his cousin1 a frail1 sensitive child1 as poor as himself4 ,he married her when she was less than fourteen years old2 he adored her1 but their life was a long crucifixion1 because of her failing health4 ,several times she broke a blood vessel1 and in the end she faded away from tuberculosis4 ,the shadow of that tragedy hung over ,poe's whole mature life1 and you will note that his loveliest poetry deals with beautiful women who are dying or dead4 ,in this tormented body there lived and wrought not merely a great genius1 but also a great mind4 ,poe was a critic1 of a kind entirely new to ,america4 ,he did not distribute indiscriminate praise from motives of patriotism and puffery2 he had critical standards1 right or wrong1 and was merciless to the swarms of art pretenders4 ,naturally1 therefore1 he was hated and furiously attacked2 and because of his weaknesses1 he was an easy mark for all4 ,his art theories were those which we are here seeking to overthrow2 how false and dangerous they were1 his life attests4 ,it is interesting to note that in one of his youthful poems1 the first real utterance of his genius1 he took a quite different view4 ,quoting an imaginary passage from the ,koran about the angel ,israfel1 8whose heart-strings are a lute10 he wrote3 ,therefore thou art not wrong1 ,israfeli1 who despisest ,an unimpassioned song2 ,to thee the laurels belong1 ,best bard1 because the wisest4 ,well might this tormented ,baltimore poet long for the wisdom of the ,mohammedan angel6 ,he spent his great analytical powers in concocting a 8moon hoax10 and in solving all the cryptograms which empty-headed people sent him4 ,it was as if a man should build a mighty engine1 and then set it to fanning the air4 ,in his last pitiful years he composed an elaborate work on metaphysics1 which he called 8,eureka10 meaning that he had solved the secret of the ages1 the nature of existence and the absolute4 ,it is like all other metaphysics--a cobweb spun out of words2 the mighty engine has here been set to fanning a vacuum4 ,poe was a fighting man and an ardent propagandist4 ,he fought for art1 for the freedom and the glory and the joy of art1 as a thing apart from humanity1 and from the sense of brotherhood and human solidarity4 ,life wreaked its vengeance upon him1 his punishment was heavy enough1 and we should be content with voicing our pity--but for the fact that his art theories are still alive in the world1 wrecking other young artists4 ,this is what makes necessary the painful task of drawing moral lessons over the graves of 8mighty poets in their misery dead40 ,,chapter ,,lxxx ,,the ,,good ,,grey ,,poet ,edgar ,allan ,poe lived and wrote to prove that art excludes morality4 ,we come now to another poet1 who lived and wrote to prove that art excludes everything else4 ,he had a message and a faith1 which was the dominating motive in everything he wrote2 in short1 he was one of the major prophets--like ,dante1 ,milton1 ,tolstoi1 ,nietzsche1 who used art as a means of swaying the souls of men4 ,referring thus to ,walt ,whitman1 we now have upon our side the weight of critical authority2 learned and entirely respectable college professors write in this fashion about his books1 and do not lose their positions for so doing4 ,but realize how different it was in ,whitman's lifetime2 in the early years respectable opinion looked upon him as a kind of obscene maniac4 ,his first edition of 8,leaves of ,grass10 a thousand copies printed by himself1 was left on his hands1 except for those which he sent out free--and even some of these were returned1 one by the poet ,whittier6 ,a critic wrote that ,whitman was 8as unacquainted with art as a hog with mathematics40 ,another wrote that he 8deserved the whip of the public executioner40 ,he was thrown out of a government position in ,washington for having a copy of his book locked up in his own desk1 and again and again his publishers were forced by threat of public prosecution to withdraw the book from circulation4 ,alone among ,whitman's contemporaries to recognize his genius was ,emerson1 and when ,whitman published ,emerson's letter in the second edition of 8,leaves of ,grass10 ,emerson was embarrassed--for in the meantime his horrified friends had persuaded him to hesitate in his opinion4 ,from all this we may learn how difficult it is to judge one's contemporaries4 ,walt ,whitman was born of farmer folk in an isolated part of ,long ,island4 ,his father became a carpenter and moved to ,brooklyn1 then a small town4 ,walt became an office boy at the age of twelve2 he got hold of some good reading1 learned printing1 and became a teacher1 and something of an orator4 ,he was an abolitionist1 a teetotaler and other kinds of 8crank02 a slow-moving1 rather stubborn youth1 who wandered about from place to place1 meeting all kinds of people1 watching life with interest1 but caring nothing for success4 ,he had a good job as a newspaper editor1 but gave it up because of his views on slavery4 ,he set a new fashion in life--a type of man now common in the radical movement1 who does enough manual labor to keep alive1 and spends the rest of his time studying literature and life4 ,walt's people loved him1 but could not make him out2 they thought he was lazy when he loafed and invited his soul4 ,he was finding his own way1 guided by the unfolding genius within4 ,he wanted to know people1 every kind that lived2 he wanted to talk with them1 to feel himself one with them4 ,he worked with laborers on the job1 he rode in ferry-boats1 he made friends with the drivers of busses4 ,he wanted to see ,america1 so he wandered by slow stages to ,new ,orleans and back4 ,he wanted to know literature1 so he read1 but according to his own taste1 taking no one's opinions4 ,when he was ready to express himself1 it was a self hitherto unknown in literature1 and the most startling voice yet lifted in ,america4 ,it often happens that the student learns about new and vital movements through the writings of their opponents4 ,thus the present writer was made into a rationalist by the reading of ,christian apologetics4 ,in the same way ,i learned about ,whitman from an essay by ,sidney ,lanier1 a respectable gentleman-poet from the ,south1 who demonstrated that ,whitman's claim to be the voice of democracy was nonsense2 the masses of the people had no interest whatever in this eccentric poetry1 and could not understand what the poet was driving at4 ,does a poet necessarily have to be appreciated by those of whom he writes8 ,or is it possible to tell something about people which they themselves do not yet know8 ,if a man is picking apples1 he is obeying the laws of gravitation1 and the apples likewise are obeying it4 ,sir ,isaac ,newton comes along1 and interprets the behavior of the man and of the apples4 ,does the truth of ,newton's law depend upon the assent of the apple-picker8 ,walt ,whitman did really know the ,american people1 the masses1 as distinguished from the cultured few2 he knew them as no man of letters up to that time had known them4 ,he believed there were tremendous1 instinctive forces working within them1 and that he1 as poet and seer1 could enter into that unconscious mass-being and understand it and guide it4 ,he believed that he was laying out the path which democracy would follow1 he was voicing the desires it would feel1 the love and fellowship and solidarity it would embody in institutions and arts4 ,whether he was right in these intuitions and mystical prophesyings was for the future to decide4 ,certainly there were two kinds of persons in ,whitman's own day who could not decide2 one was the average wage-slave1 ignorant and groping2 and the other was a gentleman from ,georgia1 who made excellent but customary rhymes about birds and brooks and flowers4 ,walt ,whitman was one of those mystics to whom the inner essence of all things is the same2 all life is sacred1 and all men are brothers in a common ,fatherhood4 ,jesus taught that1 and in the nineteen hundred years which have since passed new prophets have arisen every now and then to revive it--but the ,christians are just as much scandalized every time4 ,whitman's title1 8,leaves of ,grass10 under which he included all his poems1 means that he chose the most common and least distinguished product of nature for his symbol of the human soul4 ,the poet himself was one of these 8,leaves of ,grass10 and celebrated himself as the representative and voice of the rest4 ,he sang the song of himself1 and his contemporaries thought this was crude and barbarous egotism4 ,this big bearded fellow who printed his own poems1 with a preface to tell how great they were1 and his picture in a workingman's dress without a necktie--he was nothing but a hoodlum1 and the critics called for the police4 ,the worst stumbling block was the portion of the book called 8,children of ,adam10 dealing with sex4 ,the ,anglo-,saxon race was used to horrified silence about sex1 and also to sly leering about sex2 the one thing it had never encountered was simple frankness4 ,what ,whitman did was to take sex exactly as it is1 a part of life1 and write about it as he wrote about everything else4 ,when ,i1 as a student1 first looked up 8,leaves of ,grass0 in the ,columbia ,university library1 ,i found this portion of the book so thumbed and worn as to make plain that the young readers had not been taught to understand ,whitman4 ,for he gave to this part of his message its due proportion and no more4 ,he was a clean man1 living an abstemious and even ascetic life1 developing his mind as well as his body4 ,the ,civil ,war came1 and the moral greatness of ,whitman was made apparent4 ,he went to ,washington as a sort of amateur nurse2 living on almost nothing1 he devoted his entire time to visiting in the hospitals1 bringing comfort and affection to tens of thousands of suffering and neglected soldiers4 ,his genius was for friendship1 and everyone loved him2 there are many stories of men whose lives were saved by his presence and his love4 ,he was a big man1 with ruddy cheeks and a full beard1 turned gray under the strain of these years4 ,it is interesting to note that ,lincoln1 meeting him1 said the same words that ,napoleon said to ,goethe3 8,this is a man60 8,the good grey poet10 as one of his friends called him1 wrecked his health amid these frightful scenes1 and was never the same again4 ,he published more poems1 8,drum-,taps10 dealing with the war4 ,all that which was called egotism is now burned away1 and we have a revelation of a people uplifted by struggle4 ,in #ahga came a prose work1 8,democratic ,vistas10 in which his message is proclaimed even more clearly than in his verse4 ,it is a call for a new art1 based upon brotherhood and equality4 ,our ,new ,world democracy1 declared ,whitman1 is 8so far an almost complete failure in its social aspects1 and in really grand religious1 moral1 literary and aesthetic results40 ,whitman suffered a stroke of paralysis1 recovered partially1 and then suffered another stroke4 ,he was more or less crippled through his last twenty years1 and lived in extreme poverty2 but gradually his fame spread and friends gathered about him4 ,the labor movement was now emerging--and its leaders were discovering that this old poet had indeed forseen how they would feel4 8,my call is the call of battle--,i nourish active rebellion40 ,and each new generation of the young nourishers of rebellion feeds its soul upon ,whitman's inspiration4 ,is it poetry8 ,that is a question over which battles are fought4 ,it seems to me that words matter little2 it is a kind of inspired chant1 which moves you if you are susceptible to its ideas4 ,for two years ,i steeped myself in the literature of the ,civil ,war1 while writing 8,manassas02 and to me at that time 8,drum-,taps0 seemed to contain all the fervor and anguish of the conflict4 ,but the everyday person1 who does not rise to those heights1 prefers 8,o ,captain1 ,my ,captain10 which has the easier beauties of rhyme and fixed rhythm4 ,the critics have by now got used to ,whitman's honesty about sex2 the only stumbling block is his long catalogues of things4 ,he will sing the human body1 and give you a list of the parts thereof3 and can that be poetry8 ,but you must bear in mind that ,whitman is more a seer than a poet4 8,sermons in stones10 said ,shakespeare2 and if the stones had names1 ,whitman would call the roll of them1 and each would be a mystic symbol1 and the total effect would be a hypnotic spell4 ,it is an old trick of those who appeal to the subconscious mind2 in the ,english ,prayer-,book1 for example1 there is a chant3 8,o1 all ye ,works of the ,lord1 bless ye the ,lord1 praise ,him and magnify ,him forever40 ,the hymn goes on to name all the various aspects of nature3 8,o1 all ye ,showers and ,dew 444 ,o1 all ye ,fire and ,heat 444 ,ye ,lightnings and ,clouds 444 ,ye ,mountains and ,hills 444 ,ye ,seas and ,floods 444 ,ye ,fowls of the ,air 444 ,ye ,beasts and ,cattle40 444 and so on through the many ,works of the ,lord which are invited to praise ,him and magnify ,him forever4 ,so1 if you are a mystic1 you may contemplate with awe each separate miraculous product of that mysterious organizing force which has created a living human body4 ,the mystical life has its dangers1 and also1 alas6 its boredoms4 ,i have stated in the chapter on ,emerson that there is no absolute which is not equally as false as it is true4 ,whitman has raised up a host of imitators1 and ,i have read their alleged 8free verse10 and record the fact that it was surely a waste of my time1 and apparently a waste of theirs4 ,also1 ,i have known many followers of ,walt ,whitman1 the greater number of whom have chosen to follow the poet's eccentricities1 rather than his virtues4 ,you see1 it is so much easier to leave off a necktie and 8loaf10 than it is to have genius and create a new art form6 ,whitman is not alone in suffering through his disciples2 ,jesus had that tragic fate1 and ,nietzsche1 and ,tolstoi1 and many another major prophet6 ,,chapter ,,lxxxi ,,cabbage ,,soup ,we have been following the fortunes of a pioneer people breaking into the field of world culture4 ,let us now travel part way round the earth in either direction1 and watch another pioneer people doing the same thing4 ,the differences between ,america and ,russia are many and striking1 and before we enter upon a study of ,russian literature we must understand ,russian life4 ,voltaire tells us that virtue and vice are products like vinegar1 and we shall find this applies also to the ,russian soul with its mysticism and melancholy4 ,when the sun almost disappears for six months at a time1 and icy blizzards rage1 human beings have a tendency to stay by the fire and develop their inner natures2 also they develop congested livers1 and brood upon the futility of life4 ,says ,mrs4 ,ogi3 8,don't forget that it often gets cold in ,new ,england40 8,yes1 and there is both mysticism and melancholy in ,new ,england art4 ,but the difference is that the people of ,new ,england escaped from the cradle of despotism in ,asia many centuries earlier than the ,russians4 ,so the brooding of the ,new ,england colonist took the form of calling a town meeting to plan for the building of a new road in the spring4 ,but the ,russian could not do things for himself2 he had to get the permission of officials4 ,if he tried to act for himself1 they would strip him and beat him with knouts until he swooned4 ,so the ,russian's brooding turned to despair1 and he got drunk1 and got into a fight and killed his neighbor1 and then tried to make up his mind whether ,god would forgive him1 or damn him to hell fire forever2 he fretted over this problem until he went insane or wrote a novel--0 8,or both10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi4 ,the dominant fact in ,russian art of the nineteenth century was despotism4 ,here was a vast empire of a hundred million people1 energetic and aspiring2 and the ruling class dreamed that they could introduce modern material civilization1 while keeping out the modern mind and soul4 ,young ,russians travelled1 and learned to think as the rest of ,europe thought2 then they came home1 to find that the slightest attempt to teach or to organize was met by imprisonment1 torture1 exile1 hard labor1 or the scaffold4 ,wave after wave of rebellion swept ,russia1 to be met by wave after wave of repression4 ,intellectual activity which ,new ,england honored was in ,russia a secret and criminal conspiracy2 the youth of the country was broken in a torture chamber2 and so we have the misery and distortion and impotence which we regard as characteristic ,slavic qualities4 ,the ,russian was supposed to be incapable of action1 incapable of keeping an appointment on time1 incapable of doing anything but drinking a hundred cups of tea and shedding tears over the fate of man4 ,but now comes the revolution1 and in a flash we discover that all that was buncombe4 ,the ,russians begin to act precisely like other men2 they cease to get drunk1 they learn to keep appointments1 they discover a sudden admiration for those qualities we call ,yankee--hustle and efficiency1 the adjusting of one's desires to what can be immediately accomplished4 ,the ,russian peasant1 supposed to be a grown-up and bearded cherub1 lifting his eyes in adoration to his ,little ,father in the ,winter ,palace and his ,big ,father in ,heaven1 is discovered to have precisely the same desires as every other farmer in the world--that is to say1 more land1 and fewer tax-collectors4 ,russian literature is a great literature1 because it voices the hopes and resolves of a great people groping their way to freedom and understanding4 ,it is1 whether consciously or unconsciously1 a literature of revolt4 ,it is full of ideas1 because it has to take the place of the prohibited subjects1 science1 politics1 economics1 and social psychology4 ,it is desperately serious1 because it is produced by people who are suffering4 ,some twenty years ago ,i remember meeting in ,new ,york the adopted son of ,maxim ,gorki1 who was earning his living as a printer by day and studying our civilization by night4 ,i recall his remark3 8,americans do not know what the intellectual life means40 ,the young man had in mind a country where you adopted ideas with the knowledge that they might cost you your liberty1 and even your life4 ,under such circumstances you think hard before you come to a decision4 ,a lot of ,americans have had an opportunity to test their ideas that way during the past ten years1 and so they are now taking the intellectual life seriously1 and producing literature in many ways resembling the ,russian4 ,says ,mrs4 ,ogi3 8,sherwood ,anderson says it is because he was raised on cabbage soup40 8,people will read that10 says ,ogi1 8and think it a flash of humor2 very few will consider seriously the effect of a starvation diet upon the soul of a sensitive boy4 ,neither will they stop to think about three boys sleeping in one bed as a source of abnormal sexual imaginings1 which constitute one of the original elements in ,sherwood ,anderson's books4 ,to me this seems a law3 that wherever you have widespread and long-continued poverty1 maintained by policemen's clubs1 there you will have a literature1 extremely painful to its creators1 but delightful to high-brow critics1 who will hail it as #8strong1' and up to the standard of the great ,russian masters40 ,,chapter ,,lxxxii ,,dead ,,souls ,the poet who taught the ,russian people the possibilities of their language was ,pushkin2 one of those beautiful leisure-class youths who live fast and die young4 ,he was born of an aristocratic family1 and when he was twenty he was1 like most poets1 a hopeful idealist1 and wrote an ode to liberty1 and was condemned to exile4 ,he lived a wild life among the gypsies1 and wasted himself1 and finally his family persuaded the tsar to give him another chance4 ,he was brought back to court and made a small functionary1 among illiterate1 dull1 supposed-to-be-great people who had no understanding of his talents4 ,he married a beautiful noble lady1 who betrayed him continuously and broke his heart4 ,pushkin now wrote folk tales1 and a great quantity of love poems in the ,byronic manner4 ,his idealism was dead2 he was a court man1 and went so far as to glorify the rape of ,poland4 ,he wrote a long narrative poem1 8,eugene ,onegin10 which tells about the tragic love troubles of an aristocratic youth1 together with all the details of his life1 how he got up in the morning1 how he sipped his chocolate1 how he read his invitations to tea-parties and balls4 ,you might not think there would be great literature in such a story2 but at least ,pushkin dealt with ,russian themes and with reality2 he made it interesting1 lending it the glamour of musical verse1 and so he killed the old classical tradition in ,russia4 ,the ,greek nymphs and the ,french shepherdesses went out of fashion1 and the way was clear for ,russian writers with something important to say to their people4 ,then came ,nikolai ,gogol4 ,he was a ,little ,russian2 that is1 he came from the ,ukraine1 which is in the ,south1 and like all ,southern countries is supposed to be warm-hearted and romantic4 ,gogol was a poor devil of a clerk1 who leaped to fame by writing humorous tales1 in which the laughter was mingled with tears4 ,he did not put in any recognized 8propaganda10 for the simple reason1 that this would have cost him his liberty4 ,in those days when you were discussing politics you announced yourself as a ,hegelian ,moderate or a ,hegelian ,leftist1 or whatever it might be2 in other words1 you pretended to be discussing the ideas of a ,german philosopher1 a spinner of metaphysical cobwebs1 instead of dealing with the real problems of your country and time4 ,gogol wrote a play called 8,the ,inspector-,general10 which tells how a government representative is expected to visit a small provincial town1 and all the functionaries are in a state of terror for fear their various stealings will be exposed4 ,it is understood that the inspector-general will come in disguise1 and so they mistake a youthful traveler for this functionary1 and insist on doing him honor1 to his great bewilderment4 ,finally the postmaster of the town1 following his custom of secretly reading the mail1 opens a letter from the young man to a friend1 telling about his adventures and ridiculing the town functionaries4 ,the postmaster reads this aloud in the hearing of the functionaries1 to their great dismay4 ,somebody read this play to the tsar1 and he was so delighted that he ordered it produced4 ,you remember ,king ,louis of ,france1 the 8grand monarch10 taking delight in ,moliere's ridicule of his courtiers4 ,the monarch can afford to laugh1 or at least thinks he can2 it is only the functionaries who realize the destructive power of laughter4 ,then ,gogol wrote a long novel1 8,dead ,souls40 ,he introduces us to a young man who might be a graduate of any one of a thousand schools and colleges and universities of 8salesmanship0 in the ,united ,states4 ,so brilliant are this young man's talents3 ,whatsoever the conversation might be about1 he always knew how to support it4 ,if people talked about horses1 he spoke about horses2 if they began talking about the best hunting dogs1 here also ,tchitchikov would make remarks to the point4 ,if the conversation related to some investigation which was being made by the government1 he would show that he also knew something about the tricks of the civil service functionaries4 ,when the talk was about billiards1 he showed that in billiards he could keep his own2 if people talked about virtue1 he also spoke about virtue1 even with tears in his eyes2 and if the conversation turned on making brandy1 he knew all about brandy4 ,this expert in the psychology of salesmanship had a truly ,yankee idea to make his fortune4 ,at that time the ,russian peasants were sold with the land1 and the landlord had to pay taxes on all his serfs4 ,a reckoning was made at certain periods1 and if any serfs died in between the periods of reckoning1 the landlord had to pay taxes just the same4 ,now1 said the salesman to himself1 any landlord will be glad to sell me these 8dead souls02 and when ,i have bought a great number of them1 ,i will get hold of a piece of land1 and move all these 8dead souls0 to that land1 and some bank will lend me a great sum of money1 not knowing they are dead4 ,to travel over ,russia and interview landlords on such an errand is in itself high comedy4 ,gogol takes us to one estate after another1 and lets us see the misery of the serfs1 and the incompetence and futility of the landlords2 the ones who are kind-hearted and sentimental don't know what to do1 and cause just as much misery as the brutal ones4 ,such a situation requires no comment from the novelist2 merely to know about it is to condemn it4 ,so it happened that ,gogol's story became a revolutionary document1 and was copied out by hand and passed about among the young rebels4 ,the government intervened1 preventing a second edition of the book2 and poor ,gogol1 a little later in his life1 turned into some kind of religious maniac1 and repented of what he had written1 and burned great quantities of his manuscripts1 including the latter part of this novel4 ,that gives us a glimpse of the 8,russian soul10 and makes us realize what a distance these people had to travel from ,oriental barbarism to modern individualism4 ,,chapter ,,lxxxiii ,,the ,,russian ,,hamlet ,the modern world was there1 and it kept calling to the youth of ,russia4 ,there came a skillful novelist1 whose task it was to interpret his country to the outside world1 and at the same time to interpret the outside world to ,russia4 ,he came of a family of wealthy landowners1 and received the best education available2 but he ventured at the funeral of ,gogol to praise the work of this great master--which so incensed the government that he was sentenced to exile upon his own estate4 ,three years later he succeeded in getting permission to go abroad1 and lived the rest of his life in ,germany and ,france1 where he was free to write as he pleased4 ,the first work of ,ivan ,turgenev was called 8,a ,sportsman's ,sketches02 pictures of the peasant types he met while on shooting trips4 ,it was a safe1 aristocratic occupation1 that of killing birds for pleasure1 and surely no government could object to a gentleman's describing the peasants who went along to carry his guns and his lunch4 ,the government did not object2 and so the reading public in ,russia had brought vividly before it the fact that human beings1 of their own blood and their own faith1 were serfs at the mercy of landlords1 to be sold like other chattels4 ,so the tsar was forced to free the serfs4 ,turgenev settled in ,paris2 a great1 handsome giant1 a wealthy bachelor1 amiable and simple1 a charming literary lion4 ,his friends were ,gautier1 ,flaubert1 and other novelists1 from whom he learned the perfections of artistry1 the pictorial charm1 the 8enamels and cameos0 ideal4 ,he had no need to learn from them the bitter and corroding despair1 because that was his ,russian heritage4 ,he wrote seven novels1 all short and simple2 the theme of each being the stock theme of leisure-class fiction1 a man and a woman at the crisis of their love4 ,his girls are very much alike2 direct and honest1 they flame up1 and are ready to act upon their feelings1 to go anywhere with the man they love4 ,but the man does not know where to go or what to do4 ,the hero of the first novel1 ,rudin1 is a kind of modern ,hamlet1 who became proverbial as the type of ,russian intellectual4 ,he is incapable of anything but talk1 and tells the girl that they must submit to her family1 which opposes the marriage4 ,in the other novels the heroes do not always submit4 ,there is1 for example1 ,bazarov1 the ,nihilist2 he is a fighter1 and ready for action--but ,turgenev tells us what he thinks of man's dream of accomplishment1 when ,bazarov scratches his finger and dies of blood poisoning4 ,another hero is a ,bulgarian1 and there is a chance for action in ,bulgaria2 but unfortunately this man's lungs are weak1 and he dies in the arms of the brave girl who eloped with him4 ,you see1 it is hard for ,turgenev to portray anyone who believes1 because he is an artist in the leisure-class tradition of fatalism and urbane incredulity4 ,life is a malady2 it is a malady in cruel and barbarous ,russia1 and no less so in free but cynical and licentious ,paris4 ,turgenev1 living safely abroad1 describes heroes who also live abroad2 he has not the moral courage to face ,russia and the ,russian problem1 even in his thoughts4 ,his people are the exiles and intellectuals1 the travelers and parasites1 amusing themselves in the capitals of ,europe4 ,he loathes this loafing class1 and satirizes it without mercy2 but also he cannot help seeing the weaknesses of the revolutionists--and the revolutionists were of course indignant at that1 because they were fighting for human freedom1 and thought that a man of culture and enlightenment ought to help them4 ,so there was furious controversy over each of ,turgenev's novels1 and it hurt the feelings of the great1 good-natured giant1 and he did a lot of explaining1 some of it contradictory4 ,the truth is that he did not know quite what he believed2 he was not a thinker1 but merely an artist in the narrow sense of the word1 one who sees what exists and portrays it with cunning skill4 ,this makes him1 of course1 a darling of the leisure-class critics1 art for art sakers and dilettanti4 ,the ,french translations of his novels had an enormous vogue1 likewise the ,english translations1 and men like ,henry ,james thought him a god4 ,but out of ,russia there now comes a new voice2 the revolutionary proletariat is making ,russia over1 and the young students report themselves bored with ,turgenev2 he whines and moans and gets them nowhere4 ,you see1 the ,russians can now act1 like other people2 and so the ,russian ,hamlet is laid on the shelf4 ,,chapter ,,lxxxiv ,,the ,,dead-,,house ,a dozen years ago in ,holland1 talking about ,dostoievski with my friend ,frederik van ,eeden1 ,i remarked that ,i had made several attempts1 but had never been able to read one of his novels through4 ,van ,eeden replied that ,dostoievski was the world's greatest novelist2 and that is high praise1 because van ,eeden is a great novelist himself4 ,now1 under the strain of the war1 my old friend has turned into a ,catholic mystic2 and so ,i understand his passion for the dark ,russian1 another of those over-burdened spirits who despair of the human intellect1 and seek refuge in that most powerful auto-suggestion known as ,god4 ,feodor ,dostoievski was born in a hospital1 his father being a poor surgeon with a big family4 ,as a child he knew cold and hunger1 and was living in a garret when he wrote his first novel1 8,poor ,people10 at the age of twenty-four4 ,it is a picture of two suffering1 will-less creatures2 and so genuine1 so completely 8lived10 that it made an instant impression4 ,its author was drawn into literary circles--which in those days meant also revolutionary circles4 ,in his feeble way he took up the ideas of ,fourier2 he attended some radical gatherings1 and went so far as to identify himself with a printing press4 ,the group were arrested1 and ,dostoievski lay in a dungeon for many months1 and finally with twenty companions was brought out upon a public square before a scaffold and prepared for death4 ,at the last moment there came a reprieve from the tsar1 but meantime one of the victims had gone insane4 ,the shock to ,dostoievski's mind was such that he comes back to the incident again and again in his books4 ,he was sent to ,siberia at hard labor2 herded with common felons1 beaten and tormented--in short1 receiving exactly the same treatment now meted out to social idealists by the states of ,california and ,washington1 and recently by the ,united ,states government at ,leavenworth4 ,after a few years the tsar pardoned ,dostoievski and impressed him into the army2 he was allowed to come back to ,russia after ten years1 and wrote the story of his experiences in a book called 8,memoirs of a ,dead-,house40 ,dostoievski now took up the life of a hack writer4 ,he had a large following1 but somebody else got the money2 he was always in debt1 his wife and children starving and freezing4 ,he wrote at terrific speed and never stopped to revise4 ,he was ill all the time1 suffering an attack of epilepsy every ten days4 ,all this is in his writing2 his characters are drunkards1 criminals1 epileptics1 idiots1 and neurotics of every type4 ,he enters into their souls1 and makes every moment of their lives1 every mood of their unhappy beings real to us4 ,his greatest novel is 8,crime and ,punishment02 telling the story of a student who1 ambitious and starving1 has an impulse to murder an old woman money-lender and rob her4 ,he commits the crime1 but is too much terrified to get the money2 then he is pursued by remorse1 and we follow him through his inner torments4 ,he meets a young girl who has become a prostitute in order to save her family from starvation2 she persuades him to give himself up to the police1 and she follows him to ,siberia1 and together their souls are redeemed by love4 ,i am conscientious in my attitude toward literature1 and when ,i find the critics raving over a great master1 ,i feel obliged to read him4 ,some years ago1 ,i was in a hospital1 recuperating from an operation1 and that seemed a good time to tackle an eight hundred-page volume1 so ,i began ,dostoievski's 8,the ,brothers ,karamazov40 ,there are several of these brothers1 also an old father1 and all of them are drunk most of the time1 and tangled up with a stupid prostitute4 ,the old father has money1 and so has the advantage over the sons1 and apparently one of the sons is on the way to murdering him4 ,to cheer you up while the climax is preparing1 there is a monastery full of monks who hate one another like poison1 and one venerable and lovable saint1 in whose spirituality you are expected to find hope for ,russia and mankind4 ,but this saint dies1 and the youngest ,karamazov brother1 who loves him1 has his faith in ,god and his hope for humanity shattered forever1 because the expected miracle does not happen--,father ,zossima stinks like any other corpse6--,that is as far as ,i got in the novel1 and if you want to know the outcome1 you will have to do your own reading4 ,this is called 8realism02 but get my point clear1 it is romantic and subjective to the highest degree2 it is impassioned1 even frenzied1 propaganda4 ,dostoievski is an orthodox ,eastern or ,byzantine ,christian2 also he is a ,slavophile1 or mystical ,russian patriot1 believing that the ,russian soul is something wonderful and special1 having secret relationship with ,god4 ,this relationship is the old mediaeval orgy of suffering and submission1 a wallowing in repentance and self-abasement1 the glorification of sores1 boils1 rags1 lice1 beggary1 and bad smells4 ,all degradation1 if patiently endured1 is penitential and holy1 whereby the character is lifted to exalted mystical states4 ,when the young student in 8,crime and ,punishment0 awakens to the horror of having killed a human being1 he does not decide to redeem himself by devoting his educated brain to some useful labor2 no1 he decides he must go to a police station and deliver himself into the hands of officials who are worse criminals than he4 ,a government1 itself the distilled essence of a billion hideous crimes1 will send him to ,siberia1 so that he and his pious prostitute may endure ecstacies of torment4 ,we see this still more clearly in another novel1 whose purpose is to reduce ,christianity to idiocy4 ,do not take this for hyperbole or epigram2 it is merely the statement of ,dostoievski's thesis4 ,the book is called 8,the ,idiot10 and the hero is an incarnation of that mystical1 psycho-neurotic ,christianity which finds redemption through abasement deliberately sought4 ,you see1 it is so easy to suffer1 and it is so hard to think6 ,it is so easy to give yourself up to epileptic tremblings and terrors1 and call it ,god6 ,also1 it appears to be easy for literary critics to take mental disease at its own valuation4 ,in the whole field of art there is no spiritual tragedy greater than ,dostoievski's4 ,this man made an attempt in the cause of liberty1 and the ,tsardom made him into a martyr2 but he came back1 not to be a soldier of enlightenment1 but to crawl in the dust and lick the hand which had lashed him4 ,he came back as a propagandist of reaction1 proclaiming a ,russia redeemed by monks4 ,well1 he had his way1 and the redeeming monk appeared--,gregori ,rasputin by name6 ,mind you1 ,i do not quarrel with ,dostoievski because he portrayed the lost and abandoned1 the hopelessly sick and tortured souls he knew4 ,i do not object because his characters are feverish and hysterical1 because they stare and glare and moan and cry and leap and tremble1 because their knees shake and their teeth chatter and they have nightmares filling whole chapters4 ,i am willing to read these things2 but ,i want to read them from the point of view of a scientist who can interpret them1 or of an economist who can remedy them2 ,i do not want to read them as an apotheosis of idiocy4 ,i do not want them composed and idealized to prove the divine nature of epilepsy4 ,and when ,i hear perfectly sane and comfortable bourgeois critics in the ,united ,states exalting this pathologic mysticism1 ,i want to throw a brick-bat at them4 ,here1 for example1 is ,professor ,william ,lyon ,phelps of ,yale ,university1 telling us that 8of all the masters of fiction both in ,russia and elsewhere1 ,dostoievski is the most truly spiritual40 ,at the beginning of his essay he says that this novelist 8was brought up on the ,bible and the ,christian religion4 ,the teachings of the ,new ,testament were with him almost innate ideas4 ,thus1 although his parents could not give him wealth1 or ease1 or comfort1 or health1 they gave him something better than all four put together40 8,i think10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi1 8that you had better take a chapter off and deal with that40 ,says her husband3 8,i have a title already chosen--0 ,,chapter ,,lxxxv ,,the ,,christian ,,bull-,,dog ,just what has a professor at ,yale ,university to do with 8the ,christian religion08 ,what do 8the teachings of the ,new ,testament0 really mean to him8 ,how competent is he to judge about 8masters of fiction0 who are 8truly spiritual08 ,how much sincerity is there in such literary criticism1 emanating from the elm shadows of ,new ,haven1 ,connecticut8 ,picture a great ruling-class university1 founded on 8the ,bible1 rum and niggers02 that is to say1 the ,african slave-trade1 covered by a mantle of religiosity4 ,the students at this university are young aristocrats1 heirs-apparent of ruling-class families1 who attend 8prep0 schools so exclusive1 and with so long a waiting list that you have to make your application when you are born4 ,in these schools they 8make0 certain exclusive fraternities1 and when they come to ,yale they 8make0 certain secret societies1 whose spirit is symbolized by the 8,skull and ,bones40 ,their other ideal in life is to win athletic contests1 whose temper they embody in the 8,bull-dog40 ,the trustees of this pious university you will find listed according to their economic functions in 8,the ,goose-,step40 ,their favorite alumnus1 the high god of the present ,yale religion is a three-hundred-pound plutocrat by the name of ,william ,howard ,taft1 who was made president of the ,united ,states some years ago for the purpose of allowing the land thieves to get away with the natural resources of ,alaska4 ,having fulfilled that function for his class1 and having1 when he came up for re-election1 succeeded in carrying the states of ,vermont and ,utah1 he was made chief justice of the ,supreme ,court1 to serve as a bulwark of the liberties of the ,american people3 the liberty of the individual hunky and wop to negotiate independently with the ,steel ,trust2 the liberty of railroad directors to compel their wage-slaves to toil when the wage-slaves want to rest2 the liberty of little children of ,georgia crackers and ,north ,carolina clay-eaters to work all night in cotton mills4 ,having solemnly delivered such pronouncements in defense of liberty1 this all-highest alumnus brings his three hundred pounds to the commencement ceremonies1 and walks in solemn procession clad in scarlet and purple robes4 ,that is ,yale1 and the spirit of ,yale2 the academic apologist of the most efficient system of plunder yet seen upon the face of the earth4 ,capitalistic exploitation is ,yale's religion2 and you will note that in all essentials it is identical with the religion of ,rasputin and ,tsar ,nicholas4 ,when the tsar's armies marched out to protect the lumber concessions of the grand dukes on the ,yalu ,river1 the priests and archbishops in the ,kremlin officially blessed the ikons4 ,and just so do chaplains of ,new ,haven bless the flags when the ,american marines set out to shoot up natives in the ,west ,indies and ,central ,america1 for failing to pay their interest upon the bonds of ,j4 ,p4 ,morgan and his ,yale trustees4 ,this ,new ,england plutocracy selects with meticulous care the professors who train its young4 ,these trainers are required to be gentlemen of the most extreme conventionality2 and they are none of them drunkards1 and none of them epileptics1 and they do not publicly manifest their ,christian sympathy for prostitutes1 however beautiful in spirit4 ,on the contrary1 they wear their neckties exactly right1 and understand and respect all those subtleties which mark the distinction between students who have 8made0 the great secret societies and students who have failed4 ,william ,lyon ,phelps1 8,lampson ,professor of ,english ,literature at ,yale ,university10 signs himself also 8,member of the ,national ,institute of ,arts and ,letters10 a most august body of literary nonentities4 ,if anyone of the characters in the novels of ,dostoievski were to accompany ,professor ,phelps to one of the sessions of this august body1 the other members would evacuate the hall4 ,if ,dostoievski himself were alive1 and writing in the ,united ,states today1 the masters of this august body would be just as apt to invite him to their membership as they are to invite ,theodore ,dreiser or ,sherwood ,anderson4 ,very well then2 what is the purpose of 8the ,christian religion10 what is the meaning of the 8spirituality0 of ,yale8 ,manifestly1 it has no relationship to the young plutocrats of ,new ,england4 ,it is an official religion1 and its application is to the wealth-producing classes4 ,its aim is to teach ,american wage-slaves to kiss the hand which lashes them--precisely as poor sick ,dostoievski kissed the ,russian ,tsardom4 ,it is to provide a mystical basis for the ,american ,legion--just as ,dostoievski's glorification of the ,slavic soul prepared the way for the 8,black ,hundreds40 ,when ,professor ,phelps says that 8the teachings of the ,new ,testament0 are better than all four of the gifts of 8wealth or ease or comfort or health10 he is not making a literary criticism1 nor is he saying anything that he means2 he is peddling the standard dope which priests and preachers of ruling classes have been feeding to the workers through a hundred thousand years4 ,says ,mrs4 ,ogi3 8,some one ought to rewrite the ,beatitudes according to the ,bull-dog40 ,says ,ogi3 8,i have put all ten of them into one4 ,it runs as follows3 ,blessed are the rich1 for they have inherited the earth and you can't get it away from them40 ,,chapter ,,lxxxvi ,,the ,,peasant ,,count ,we come now to the great giant of the ,north1 the most dynamic artist that ,russia has produced4 ,leo ,tolstoi1 when he died1 was not only the greatest literary man in the world2 he was the incarnation to all mankind of the ,russian genius and moral power4 ,his books had been translated into forty-five languages1 and read not merely by the cultured few but by the great masses4 ,the revolution which came seven years after his death did not follow ,tolstoi's principles1 and he would have been shocked by many aspects of it2 nevertheless it is true that1 just as ,rousseau brought on the ,french revolution1 ,tolstoi brought on the ,russian revolution1 and his invisible spirit had much to do with shaping it4 ,leo ,tolstoi was a member of the higher nobility4 ,as a literary man1 therefore1 he started with the same advantage as ,byron2 the critics were ready to read his work1 the public was curious about him1 and all his life1 whatever he did or said was 8copy40 ,his relatives and friends were high in court circles1 and he was able to speak to the tsar whenever he pleased2 therefore he and he alone was above the power of the police system which strangled the life of ,russia4 ,he received a good education1 according to the ruling-class standards of his time1 and lived a life of elegant idleness and dissipation4 ,but even in early youth he was tormented by religious and moral questionings4 ,he decided that he must do something useful1 so he became an artillery officer in the army of his tsar4 ,here he wrote an autobiographical story1 8,childhood10 which attracted immediate attention4 ,then came the ,crimean war1 and he wrote a series of pictures of this conflict1 8,sevastopol10 which made him known as a great writer4 ,he traveled abroad and met ,turgenev in ,paris2 but still his conscience troubled him1 and at the age of thirty-one he went back to his estate at ,yasnaya ,polyana1 and undertook the task of educating the peasants who tilled his fifteen thousand acres and provided his leisure and comfort4 ,here came the police1 during his absence1 and searched his house and closed the school4 ,in those days ,tolstoi was an artillery officer1 and not a ,christian pacifist2 he sent word to the tsar by his aunt that he was armed1 and if the police came to his estate again he would shoot the first one who entered the house4 ,tolstoi married1 and raised a large family upon this estate4 ,his wife was a devoted admirer of his literary work1 and copied his manuscripts many times over with infinite pains4 ,during the years #ahfe-fi he wrote 8,war and ,peace10 which most critics consider one of the great novels of the world4 ,i will merely record my regrets4 ,there are a vast number of characters1 scattered all over ,russia2 each character has several long ,russian names1 and1 according to ,russian custom1 will be called different names by different groups of persons--to say nothing of diminutives and nick-names4 ,i labored diligently to keep track of these characters1 to remember which was which and what each was doing2 but ,i failed4 ,next came 8,anna ,karenina03 a sort of ,russian high-society version of 8,the ,scarlet ,letter40 ,anna is a woman who has been sold in the usual way to an elderly gentleman2 she is a contented wife1 until she meets a young cavalry officer whom she truly loves4 ,instead of engaging in a polite intrigue1 according to the custom of her time1 ,anna takes the new love affair more seriously than she takes her marriage1 and so ,tolstoi drives her and her lover to suicide4 ,this harshness greatly shocked the critics of the time1 who said that ,tolstoi was 8killing flies with an ax40 ,there are several attitudes one can take to the problem of the 8eternal triangle40 ,you can say1 as polite society said all over ,europe1 and still says1 that adulterous intrigue is a small matter1 provided you make a pretense of hiding it4 ,or you may say with me1 that when a married woman finds she truly and deeply loves another man1 it is her duty to get a divorce and marry the man she loves4 ,or you may say1 with most of the 8heavy0 novelists1 that there is nothing for the various characters to do but to die horrid deaths4 ,tolstoi was on the way to the great crisis of his life1 a spiritual conversion which involved a complete repudiation of the sexual element in love4 ,he decided that it was the duty of men and women to repress their physical desires and become inspired ,christian ascetics4 ,when people asked him how1 in that event1 the human race was to continue to be propagated1 his answer was that we didn't have to worry about that1 because so few people would be able to practice the code he laid down4 ,it is difficult to see how a moral teacher could advance a doctrine more obviously absurd than that4 ,the better elements of the race are to sterilize themselves1 and posterity is to be begotten by weaklings and conscious sinners6 ,there is only one possible explanation of such a doctrine2 it is the reaction of a man whose passions are beyond his control4 ,we know that such was the case with ,tolstoi2 he was a gross man1 and ,gorki reports that even in his old age his conversation was unbearably obscene1 and his attitude toward women low4 ,such a man can conceive of asceticism1 but he cannot conceive of true idealism in the sex relationship4 ,if ,tolstoi's conversion had had to do with sex matters alone1 it would have had but little significance4 ,but it was something far greater than that2 it was the cry of anguish of a member of the privileged classes1 who realized that his whole life1 all his equipment of leisure and knowledge and power1 was made out of the blood and sweat and tears of the debased masses of his ,russian people4 ,he wanted to give up his landed estates1 and live as a peasant1 and return to the workers what he had taken from them4 ,but1 alas1 in the meantime he had raised a large family1 and this family had something to say about the matter4 ,the ,countess ,tolstoi had been her husband's devoted helper1 so long as he was content to remain a literary man2 but when he wanted to become a prophet and a saint1 she thought he was mad4 ,she had the children to look out for1 and the children1 of course1 wanted to grow up as their father had done1 in the great world of pleasure and fashion4 ,tolstoi himself retired to live in a hut2 he put on peasant's clothes and spent his time cobbling shoes4 ,he gave up his copyrights1 but he could never get the courage to give up his land2 so he continued to grow rich1 in spite of all his agonized preachings1 and the balance of his life was continuous contradiction and disharmony4 ,in the end he could stand it no longer2 he saw his children quarreling over the property1 like so many birds of prey over a carcass1 and so he went out from his home1 with no one but his secretary4 ,for a time no one knew where he was1 and at last he was discovered1 ill and dying4 ,his flight was one of the great gestures of history1 and the scenes which took place about his death-bed summed up in dramatic form all the conflicting forces of the time4 ,tolstoi had repudiated the ,russian church as a creature of superstition and exploitation4 ,he had gone back to primitive ,christianity1 and the church had excommunicated him4 ,now1 when he was dying1 they wanted to get him back1 realizing that their very existence depended upon it4 ,if they could not persuade him to confess and repent1 they would lie about it1 and say that he had done so1 as orthodox churches have done for many other great heretics4 ,so here were ,tolstoi's friends1 mounting guard in the railroad station where he lay dying1 to keep the priests and the bishops away6 ,and here also were the police agents and spies1 a swarm of vermin1 prying into the affairs of every person about the death-bed1 and telegraphing in panic to headquarters for instructions4 ,when the great soul had passed on1 and the body had to be moved1 some students tried to sing a hymn1 and there were the usual scenes of brutality to which the ,russian people were accustomed4 ,tolstoi had met some of the revolutionists of his time1 but had been cold to them2 he was not interested in politics1 only in religious and moral questions4 ,his conversion first took the form of absolute non-resistance to evil4 ,later on he came to modify it to the doctrine which ,gandhi is now spreading throughout all ,asia1 8non-violent resistance40 ,you shall not use physical force against your enemy1 but you oppose him by word and teaching1 by your power of endurance and of moral conviction2 so you shame him1 or rouse the moral forces of the whole world to rebuke him4 ,tolstoi applied that treatment to the state church and to the police4 ,of course1 if he had been a peasant or a workingman1 or even a poor student or literary man1 he would have been beaten to death with the knout1 or shipped off to ,siberia to perish in a convict camp4 ,but he was a member of the nobility1 and his family influence protected him1 until he had become so famous throughout the world that he was greater than the ,tsardom itself4 ,in his last years he lived as a majestic symbol of the protest of the ,russian people2 he poured out arguments against war1 against government cruelty1 against landlordism1 against priestcraft2 and all the powers of darkness in ,russia did not dare to lay a finger upon him4 ,in his later years he wrote several novels1 one of which ,i personally consider his greatest4 ,this is 8,resurrection10 which tells the story of a young ,russian nobleman who seduces a peasant girl1 and later on in life discovers her as a prostitute4 ,he becomes conscience-stricken because of what he has done1 and sets out to redeem her1 follows her to ,siberia and saves her1 and in the end they live that life of brotherly and sisterly love which ,tolstoi had come to preach4 ,this story contains frightful pictures of the whole ,russian system2 it was translated into an immense number of languages1 and it probably did more than any other one book to undermine the ,tsardom4 ,tolstoi published a work of criticism1 and some people think that ,i got my ideas from it4 ,therefore1 let me say that if you want to find the germ of 8,mammonart10 you will do better to consult ,walt ,whitman's 8,democratic ,vistas10 published a generation before ,tolstoi's work4 ,the thesis of ,tolstoi's 8,what is ,art80 resembles mine in just one particular2 that is1 we both believe that art has to do with moral questions--a belief which we share with ,aeschylus and ,sophocles and ,euripedes and ,aristophanes and ,virgil and ,dante and ,cervantes and ,moliere and ,victor ,hugo and ,dostoievski and ,tennyson and ,ibsen--and so on through a long list of persons still to be considered4 ,but from what point of view shall the artist approach morality8 ,tolstoi answers as one who distrusts the intellect1 distrusts science1 and has no use for or belief in progress1 whether social or political or intellectual4 ,he believes that the one basis of hope for human beings is in a return to the primitive1 elemental forms of life2 he wants art to confine itself to those simple emotions which can be understood by the uneducated peasant4 ,i should say that the easiest way to make plain his thesis would be to change his title from 8,what ,is ,art80 to 8,what ,is ,children's ,art80 ,whatever faults the critic may have to find with 8,mammonart10 ,i beg him to realize that its author is not a primitive ,christian1 but a scientific ,socialist2 one who welcomes the achievements of the human intellect1 and looks forward to a complex social order1 and to social art which will possess an intensity and subtlety beyond the power of comprehension1 not merely of ,russian peasants1 but of the exclusive and fastidious individualist culture of our time4 ,,chapter ,,lxxxvii ,,headaches ,,and ,,dyspepsia ,we left the ,french novel in the hands of ,flaubert4 ,we return now to consider the influence of two ,french writers1 who founded the school known as 8naturalism40 ,they were contemporaries of ,flaubert1 but their influence counted later1 for the reason that recognition was so long delayed4 ,jules and ,edmond de ,goncourt were brothers1 who collaborated in writing to such an extent that they became as one mind and one pen4 ,jules1 the younger1 died at the age of forty2 his brother lived to old age4 ,they came of an aristocratic family1 and inherited a competence2 they were bachelors and semi-invalids1 and devoted themselves to the cause of art with a kind of ascetic frenzy4 ,they believed that true art could be understood only by artists2 but they achieved greatness in spite of that theory1 because of the intensity of their sensibility1 and the vitality they gave to the creatures of their brain4 ,it was the ,goncourts who first used the term 8naturalism40 ,it was their idea that characters are built up and a story made real by infinite attention to detail4 ,no attempt must be made to generalize1 you must deal with the particular1 and you must make that particular known by the massing of external circumstance4 ,everything must be subordinated to that purpose2 the style must be flexible1 it must1 like the music of the ,wagnerian opera1 change at every moment1 according to the scene it portrays4 ,these writers broke all the rules of ,french literary elegance1 they used barbarous and forbidden words1 so the critics ridiculed them1 and the academy of ,richelieu spurned them1 and they had to start an academy of their own4 ,their first work of significance was 8,germinie ,lacerteux10 which tells the life history of a ,french serving-maid4 ,why should the genteel art of fiction stoop to such a heroine8 ,the authors answer this question in a preface3 ,living in the nineteenth century1 at a time of universal suffrage1 and democracy1 and liberalism1 we asked ourselves whether what are called 8the lower orders0 had no claim upon the ,novel2 whether the people--this world beneath a world--were to remain under the literary ban and disdain of authors who have hitherto maintained silence regarding any soul and heart that they might possess4 ,we asked ourselves whether1 in these days of equality1 there are still for writer and reader unworthy classes1 misfortunes that are too low1 dramas too foul-mouthed1 catastrophes too base in their terror4 ,we became curious to know whether ,tragedy1 that conventional form of a forgotten literature and a vanished society1 was finally dead2 whether1 in a country devoid of caste and legal aristocracy1 the miseries of the lowly and the poor would speak to interest1 to emotion1 to pity1 as loudly as the miseries of the great and rich2 whether1 in a word1 the tears that are wept below could provoke weeping like those that are wept above4 ,fiction had dealt with serving-maids before this2 for example1 the heroine of the first great ,english novel1 ,pamela1 occupies that station4 ,but ,pamela is an innocent child1 and our interest is in seeing her raised to the status of a lady4 ,the ,goncourts do not tell that kind of story3 quite the contrary1 their serving-maid sinks to the depths of degradation4 ,the only other novelist of this time who was writing about such 8low life0 was ,charles ,dickens4 ,he will tell you about poverty1 he will even tell you about seduction1 and the sufferings of a seduced woman2 but always he is a ,victorian gentleman1 remembering what is proper for young girls to read4 ,the ,french writers1 on the other hand1 take up the sexual conduct and feelings of their women in the spirit of a medical clinic2 they make it a matter of honor to spare you no most hideous detail1 and if you go with them you will learn all there is to know about sexual pathology4 ,now this degradation exists in the world1 and it is the duty of every thinking man and woman to know about it2 to shrink from knowing1 or from telling others about it1 is to evade our mental duty4 ,but when we have acquired this knowledge--when we have visited the hospitals and the jails and the brothels and the morgues--our minds are automatically led to the question3 what is to be done about it8 ,not to follow this impulse is to be mentally incompetent or morally diseased4 ,and that is where we part company with the ,goncourt brothers and their theory of art4 ,we learn from them all about the experiences of a ,paris prostitute2 we learn the details of the life of a young society girl1 brought up in a hot-house environment1 a prey to abnormal cravings2 we learn the symptoms of religious pathology1 the half-sensuous hysteria of a woman in the toils of ,catholic priestcraft4 ,there are eight or ten such novels1 each dealing with a different assortment of abnormalities2 but nowhere in these books is there a hint of anything to be done1 whether by individual conversion1 the renewal of the moral forces1 or by political and economic readjustments4 ,all such things are rigidly excluded by the 8naturalist0 formula2 and it is essential to get clear that the ,goncourt brothers1 who made the formula1 made it because they were sick and impotent men1 the victims of a decadent stage of civilization4 ,they thought they were giving us scientific reports upon human life1 when as a matter of fact what they were giving us were the by-products of their own headaches and dyspepsias4 ,they toiled with the devotion of martyrs to report every quiver of their nervous sensibility2 ,edmond watched ,jules while ,jules was dying--,jules even watched himself--in order to report the details of this experience4 ,neither of them realized that1 much as the world may need information about the sensations of dying1 it has even more need of information about how to live4 ,as for the ,goncourt brothers1 what they needed was fresh air and exercise4 ,fiction1 according to this 8naturalist0 formula1 was to become 8exact science40 ,but then1 there are many kinds of science4 ,it is science to put a beetle under the microscope1 and diagram the epidermal cells in its carapace4 ,but science does not stop with such observation2 it goes on to experiment4 ,supposing this beetle be dyed pink2 will there be any trace of pink in its offspring1 and does that prove the transmission of acquired characteristics8 ,we have here in ,california a plant wizard who raises fields of flowers and fruits and vegetables4 ,he is not content to accumulate facts about them1 but proceeds to alter them--to make cactus without spines1 and blackberries as big as your thumb1 and wheat that is rust-proof and peaches that are scale-proof4 ,will some member of the ,goncourt ,academy explain why the 8exact science0 of fiction writing might not include an effort to free human beings from alcoholism and syphilis8 ,as it happened1 the greatest disciple of the ,goncourt brothers1 the man who took up their formula and used it to make himself the most widely read of all ,french novelists1 came in the end to this very conclusion1 and evolved into a moralist as intense and determined as ,tolstoi4 ,,chapter ,,lxxxviii ,,the ,,troughs ,,of ,,zolaism ,emile ,zola was left an orphan in childhood1 and experienced bitter poverty4 ,he began work as a bundle-clerk in a publishing house1 and trained himself to be a writer at night4 ,he knew what it was to be half-starved1 and to write in bed with his fingers freezing in an unheated room4 ,his struggle for recognition was long2 for more than a score of years he wrote pot-boilers without success4 ,but he had faith in his own genius1 he was a stubborn plodder1 and in his grim1 sober fashion he worked his way to the top4 ,when ,i was a boy this ,frenchman's name was a synonym for everything loathsome2 ,tennyson wrote about 8wallowing in the troughs of ,zolaism40 ,this writer had used words never before used in literature1 and described actions never before described2 the critics could find but one explanation--that he was a vile-minded wretch4 ,but in fact he was one of the most conscientious writers and most determined reformers that ever lived4 ,he wrote that 8#8l',assommoir' is morality in action 444 the first story of the people that has the true scent of the people40 ,and he added3 8,i do not defend myself1 my work will defend me4 ,it is a true book40 ,he had set himself to tell the full truth about the world in which he lived2 to portray it as it actually was1 both high and low1 without mercy1 without fear or shame1 without sparing the hideous facts4 ,having such a picture before you1 you might make what you pleased of it2 you might become a cynic or a sensualist1 a saint or a revolutionist2 but until you had the facts1 how could you judge what you ought to become8 ,he planned a tremendous work1 to consist of more than a score of volumes1 the 8,rougon-,macquart series10 to tell the history of a family under the ,second ,empire4 ,we are back in the time of ,napoleon the ,little1 when ,victor ,hugo was driven into exile1 and the ,french bourgeoisie set up their puppet emperor4 ,zola had imbibed the materialistic science of his time2 he believed that human life was determined by heredity1 and he wished to exhibit this force working in society4 ,he chose two people suffering from a nervous disease1 and showed their descendants1 the rich ones plundering and squandering1 the poor ones sunk in drunkenness and degradation4 ,for years the critics spurned these books1 and the public neglected them2 but at last came a masterpiece1 8l',assommoir10 which had an enormous sale4 ,the title means1 literally1 8,the ,slaughter-,house02 it is the name of a saloon in the working-class quarter of ,paris1 where the poor are lured to their doom4 ,it has been just twenty-five years since ,i read this book1 but ,i still see the procession of ghastly scenes3 the poor woman slave in a laundry1 the husband a house-painter1 and their brood of wretched1 neglected children4 ,i gasp as ,i see the painter slip and fall from the roof to his death2 ,i shudder as ,i see the child ,nana1 peeping through the key-hole at the obscenities her parents are committing4 ,zola has no graces of style1 no charms of personality1 no humor1 hardly even any sentiment4 ,he is hag-ridden by the misery of the modern world1 and in plodding1 matter-of-fact1 relentless fashion he proceeds to overwhelm you with a mass of facts4 ,a few such facts you might evade1 but the sum of them is irresistible2 you know that this is the truth4 ,over the whole picture you feel the brooding pity of a master spirit1 to whom these suffering millions are an obsession1 haunting his imagination and driving him to his task4 ,there are no heroes and no heroines in ,zola's works2 his hero is the human swarms who breed like flies in our teeming cities1 and struggle and suffer and perish1 without ever a gleam of understanding of their fate4 ,he takes us into the mining country1 and in 8,germinal0 shows us the slaves of the pits1 coal-blackened hordes1 starving1 oppressed1 poisoned by alcohol1 surging up in a blind fury of revolt4 ,in 8,nana0 he shows us prostitution2 and to me this is the most frightful book of all--the life-story of the little girl whom we saw getting her first lessons in vice through the key-hole4 ,this daughter of the working class becomes their instrument of vengeance upon the exploiters2 a seductress1 a wanton1 luring men old and young to their doom1 she is a kind of symbol of wastefulness4 ,her life becomes a frenzy of destruction2 silks1 jewels1 food and wine are poured upon her in floods1 and she throws them about like a drunken giant wrecking a city4 ,while she lies dying of small-pox1 we hear the mob outside shrieking3 8,to ,berlin6 ,to ,berlin60 ,the ,franco-,prussian war is on1 and ,napoleon the ,little is about to try out his dream of glory1 and provide ,zola with the theme for yet another masterpiece1 8,the ,downfall10 showing war with all its horror of mass suffering and national collapse4 ,zola1 raved at and prosecuted as a sensationalist and corrupter1 had now become a national figure2 and he met this responsibility by evolving from a materialist and fatalist into a scientific ,socialist1 a rationalist and preacher of humanity4 ,he wrote three long novels1 8,lourdes10 8,rome0 and 8,paris10 which exposed the church as a bulwark of hereditary privilege1 and became the text-books of anti-clericalism in ,france4 ,then came the ,dreyfus case1 calling for a hero to carry the anti-clerical banner into action2 and the man with the sewer name came forward to answer the call4 ,france had become a republic1 but the army had remained monarchist and clerical4 ,some of these pious aristocrats1 needing money to lavish on their ,nanas1 had been selling army secrets to ,germany1 and were caught4 ,they decided to put the blame upon a certain cavalry officer1 who happened to be guilty of a quite different crime1 that of being a ,jew4 ,captain ,dreyfus was convicted1 and sentenced to life imprisonment in the convict settlement on ,devil's ,island4 ,another officer1 who investigated the case and attempted to defend ,dreyfus1 was shipped off to ,africa4 ,it was nearly a hundred and fifty years since ,voltaire had made his fight in the ,calas case2 and here was 8l',infame0 at the same old game of the 8frame-up40 ,zola came forward with a terrific challenge entitled 8,j',accuse40 ,he was arrested1 tried and convicted1 and escaped from ,france4 ,for years this ,dreyfus case remained an international scandal1 and finally it was proved that the documents used against ,zola had been forged1 and later on one of the guilty men committed suicide1 and ,dreyfus was released and reinstated4 ,as ,i write this book the papers record that ,premier ,herriot has abolished the penal settlement on ,devil's ,island1 and so ,zola's task is completed4 ,he had now become the leader of the ,french masses in the war against reaction2 and his last novels were tracts written in this cause4 ,in 8,labor0 he portrays his ideal of the free men and women of the revolutionary movement1 living frugal and abstemious lives1 and consecrating themselves to the cause of human emancipation4 ,another1 called 8,truth10 deals with the ,dreyfus case4 ,another had been planned1 8,justice10 but this he did not live to write4 ,in all these works you notice that the old theories of materialistic science have been modified enough to permit men to fight for truth and freedom2 and so ,emile ,zola shares with ,walt ,whitman the rle of prophet of democracy4 ,he served the masses even better than ,whitman1 because he achieved complete insight into the economic forces of modern times1 and pointed out to the people the exact road they had to travel4 ,more than any other artist of the nineteenth century he voiced and guided the movement of proletarian revolt1 the mass action of the workers of factory and farm to whom the future belongs4 ,,chapter ,,lxxxix ,,the ,,sportive ,,demon ,what would ,zola and his naturalism have been without social vision and revolutionary hope8 ,this question was answered for us by a disciple and friend of ,zola1 ten years his junior1 who proceeded to make a laboratory test4 ,guy de ,maupassant was a healthy young ,norman animal1 who came up to ,paris to make his way as a journalist4 ,he was a tremendous worker2 in the course of his short life he wrote six novels and two hundred and twelve short stories4 ,he made himself master of the latter form1 and has had a dominating influence upon it4 ,no one has been able to pack more meaning into a brief episode1 to give you the whole life and import of a character in a couple of thousand words4 ,therefore all young writers of short stories go to school to him4 ,what has he to give them--aside from the tricks of the trade8 ,maupassant himself would have answered3 ,nothing4 ,for he was one of the fighting art-for-art's-sakers1 to whom the idea of morality in an art-work is an insult4 ,but the fact is that he has a propaganda1 as definite1 as deeply felt1 as persistently hammered home as that of a tub-thumper like ,john ,bunyan or a prophet like ,tolstoi4 ,his message is that life is a cheat and a snare1 and that human beings are beasts decked in fine clothing and pretenses4 ,maupassant dislikes them so that he eats himself up4 ,he tries to believe in play1 in natural1 animal enjoyment of the passions2 but instead of being content with such pleasures1 he shuts himself up like a hermit in a cell1 to acquire mastery of a difficult art1 and have the satisfaction before he dies of voicing his hatred of that fate1 whatever it may be1 which has created his own life1 and the bourgeois ,france which he sees about him4 ,maupassant watches with eager eye and alert fancy for a scene1 an episode1 a trait of character1 which will enable him to illustrate the pettiness and ignominy of human destiny1 and the falsity of man's dignities and honors4 ,he collects such things1 as a naturalist collects biting bugs and stinging serpents4 ,his characters are the ,french peasants with their greed and cruelty1 and the ,french bourgeois and cultured classes1 who1 underneath their silks and satins1 their moralities and intellectualities1 are the same vile animals as the peasants4 ,but ,maupassant's quarrel is not merely with men and women2 it is with life itself4 ,the thing which brings him the keenest satisfaction is an incident which shows the futility even of virtue2 which exhibits ,god as a sportive demon1 amusing himself by pulling off the wings of the butterflies he has created4 ,out of the two hundred and twelve specimens in the ,maupassant museum1 any one will suffice4 ,i choose one called 8,the ,necklace10 simply because it has stayed in my memory for twenty-five years4 ,a lovely woman1 married to a poor clerk1 and living a starved life1 borrows from a wealthy friend a beautiful diamond necklace1 in order to make a show at some function4 ,she loses the necklace1 and she and her husband pledge everything they own1 buy another to replace it1 and take it to the owner without revealing what has happened4 ,for ten years they slave and drudge to pay off their debts1 and the lovely woman is turned into a haggard wreck4 ,the friend who loaned the necklace meets her1 and is horrified at her condition2 the poor woman tells how she has drudged all these years--and learns that she has wasted her life in order to replace an imitation necklace1 of no value worth considering6 ,there is subtlety in the technique of ,maupassant1 but none in his view of life4 ,there can be no subtlety1 when you lay down the law that human beings are beasts4 ,there are only a few beast emotions1 and they never vary2 you can always be sure what a man will do in the presence of a woman1 and what the woman will let him do4 ,and when ,god is a sportive demon1 all stories have the same ending4 ,you may not foresee the particular trick this demon will play--for example1 that the lost necklace would turn out to have been paste--but you can be sure that something will happen to make a mockery of all human effort and hope4 ,and likewise you can foresee the ending of such a man4 ,if he takes life seriously enough to become a great artist1 he is apt to take it seriously enough to act upon his convictions4 ,he will seek refuge from despair in debauchery and drink2 not finding it1 he will go on to opium and hashish4 ,he will be one of those who from fear of death commit suicide1 or who from brooding over insanity go insane4 ,maupassant was in a strait-jacket at the age of forty2 thus proving himself a moralist1 and a teacher of precious lessons3 more than we can say about the art dilettanti of our own time1 who write delicately perfumed impropriety1 and live conventional and pampered lives upon the backs of the working class4 ,,chapter ,,xc ,,the ,,foe ,,of ,,formulas ,up in the gloomy1 ice-bound ,north1 where men dream about ,god and drink strong liquor1 another teacher was engaged in undermining bourgeois morality1 and raising a storm of controversy about his head4 ,the name of ,henrik ,ibsen brings before us a grim-faced old man with set mouth and large spectacles and a fringe of defiant white whiskers4 ,he was a fighting man1 a dogmatic antidogmatist1 a propagandist if ever there was one in the field of art4 ,he also was born of the people1 and educated in the school of hardship4 ,he was an apothecary's assistant in a small ,norwegian port1 then a poor student1 journalist and poet1 then the director of a provincial theater1 which struggled for six years in a vain fight against bankruptcy4 ,finally1 at the age of thirty-eight1 ,ibsen received a pension of four or five hundred dollars a year from the king1 and on this he lived a stern1 penurious life1 raising a family1 sewing the buttons on his own clothes1 and making over the theater and the moral ideas of the thinking world4 ,except for some pot-boilers written in his youth1 all the works of ,ibsen have one theme1 the problem of ideals in relation to reality4 ,men and women form a conception of right conduct1 and they try to apply it1 and it doesn't work out as it is supposed to2 in most of ,ibsen's plays it works out exactly the opposite way4 ,his thesis is that life cannot be guided by formulas2 those of democracy are just as dangerous as those of authority2 either will destroy you if you apply them blindly4 ,ibsen is in revolt against religious creeds and social conventions which repress the individual and thwart his full development4 ,but you must not assume that he is willing to make a formula out of self-realization2 straightway he will turn about and show you some selfish egotist engaged in realizing himself and wrecking everyone else4 ,ibsen wrote two long poems1 8,brand0 and 8,peer ,gynt10 into which he put ideas resembling those of 8,don ,quixote40 ,brand is a ,norwegian preacher1 who has his formula of perfect righteousness1 the sacrifice of the individual to ,god4 ,he acts as blindly as ,don ,quixote tilting at wind-mills1 and destroys a number of people1 himself included4 8,peer ,gynt10 on the other hand1 is a scamp who1 like ,sancho ,panza1 fools himself by those very qualities of which he is most proud1 his ability to take care of himself1 his unwillingness to consider anything but his own interest4 ,ibsen also fell under the spell of gloomy materialistic science4 ,like ,maupassant1 he sees men as the sport of circumstances4 ,the difference is that he believes1 in spite of his theories1 in fighting against circumstance1 and his whole being is absorbed in the task of helping men and women to fight wisely and effectively4 ,he took the ,french device of the 8well-made play10 a simple1 unadorned picture of reality1 compressing a great mass of character and incident into a small space4 ,he used this art form to deal1 not with the great world of fashion1 but with the middle-class people he knew in small ,norwegian towns3 doctors and lawyers and clergymen and merchants1 with their wives and sons and daughters4 ,they are wretchedly unhappy people1 and ,ibsen shows how they make their own unhappiness1 because their ideas are false1 because they are slaves of traditions which have no relation to present-day reality4 8,the ,pillars of ,society0 tells about a business man who makes his life a string of lies in order to hide an offense he has committed2 he is helping to preserve civilization1 by not letting anybody know that a business man can do wrong4 8,a ,doll's ,house0 tells about a woman who discovers that she is a pet and an ornament in her household1 and leaves her husband and children and goes out into the world to become an individual4 ,there are three stages in one's attitude toward thesis plays of this sort4 ,first1 the thesis is new1 and whether it pleases you or angers you1 it rouses and stirs you4 ,second1 you know the thesis by heart1 and have accepted it and lived it4 ,at that stage the play bores you2 you say that you do not go to the theater for ,sunday school lessons4 ,the third stage comes when the thesis has become so familiar that you no longer think of the play in that way2 it holds you then1 if it holds you at all1 by the human realness of its characters and their fates4 ,eighteen years ago ,i saw 8,a ,doll's ,house0 acted4 ,i was at the second stage of development1 and it seemed to me a tiresome little sermon1 ,i could not stay to the end4 ,but a few days later ,i saw 8,hedda ,gabler10 and this was different2 ,i forgot the thesis1 and was interested in a psychological study of the modern parasitic female4 ,we all know ,hedda2 some of us have been married to her4 ,she has been brought up in idleness1 she lives by vanity1 she is bored1 and preys upon men1 not because she is sexual1 but because she wants attention and applause1 and cannot endure that anyone else should have these things in her presence4 ,one of ,hedda's victims is a poet2 he has labored to produce a manuscript1 and in his despair over her he tears it up4 ,when ,hedda hears of that she is thrilled to the depths1 and cries3 8,a deed6 ,a deed60 ,let that be a symbol of the art-for-art's-sake attitude to life6 ,the greatest of ,ibsen's plays is 8,ghosts40 ,it has a thesis so wicked that the critics hardly yet dare to state it4 ,this thesis happens to be the exact opposite of the one in 8,the ,scarlet ,letter03 that a true and good woman1 unhappily married1 who finds that she loves her clergyman1 ought to elope with the clergyman instead of staying with her husband4 ,in ,ibsen's play the woman stays with her husband1 and helps to make him comfortable1 while he gets drunk and commits infidelities4 ,she bears him a son1 and lavishes her love and devotion upon this son1 only to see him go the way of his father1 and eventually die of syphilis4 ,this unpleasant disease had never before appeared upon the stage1 and when 8,ghosts0 was produced in the pious city of ,london in the year #ahia1 the critics and newspapers went out of their minds4 ,you may find a record of their opinions in ,bernard ,shaw's 8,quintessence of ,ibsenism02 starting with the ,london 8,daily ,telegraph10 which called the play 8an open drain2 a loathsome sore unbandaged2 a dirty act done publicly2 a lazar-house with all its doors and windows open 444 candid foulness 444 bestial and cynical 444 offensive cynicism 444 melancholy and malodorous world 444 absolutely loathsome and fetid 444 gross1 almost putrid indecorum 444 literary carrion 444 crapulous stuff40 ,all this referring to a play now recognized as one of the great tragic masterpieces of all time6 8,an ,enemy of the ,people0 deals with ,ibsen's attitude toward politics and social questions4 ,the 8enemy0 is a young doctor in a ,norwegian town1 who discovers that the famous baths1 the basis of the town's prosperity1 are infected with typhoid4 ,the doctor insists upon making the facts public1 and so of course he has an unhappy time4 ,curiously enough1 you will find the same story in 8,the ,goose-,step02 it happened at the ,university of ,oregon--quite a distance from ,norway4 ,the 8enemy of the people0 in this latter case was a young professor1 who was duly compelled to move on4 ,the world is forty years older than when ,ibsen wrote this play2 we have had time to analyze the economic forces in our society1 and we are no longer satisfied with a crude distrust of democracy4 ,it is true that the people stone the prophets2 but later on they build monuments to them2 and the world must be saved by the people1 if it is to be saved at all4 ,ibsen's attitude is the natural one for an artist1 who has to take care of his own mind1 and does not want anyone to tell him what to think4 ,he is distrustful of discipline1 preaches individualism--and finds the reactionaries glad to quote his words4 ,but you see1 all the poet has to do is to portray the world2 the masses have a more difficult job--they have to change it4 ,so they cannot rest in the anarchist attitude2 they have to have discipline and solidarity1 they have to organize and find leaders1 and learn to stand by those leaders1 and at the same time to control them4 ,all that is a new task1 and calls for new types of thinkers1 not merely critical1 but constructive4 ,,chapter ,,xci ,,the ,,biological ,,superior ,sweden also had a great dramatist and poet in this nineteenth century4 ,he came some twenty years later than ,ibsen1 a tormented and highly emotional man of genius1 who just about boxed the compass of thought1 and believed everything there was for a man to believe4 ,he was too much of a propagandist1 even for me2 ,i like an artist to have ideas1 but not so many that they contradict6 ,august ,strindberg's father was a bankrupt shop-keeper2 his mother was a bar-maid1 and three illegitimate children had preceded him4 ,he was raised in a family of eleven in a small house1 and the first emotions he knew were fear and hunger4 ,he was lonely and unhappy all his life1 and poured out his troubles in a torrent over ,sweden4 ,he began writing at twenty-one2 he had the artist's passion for all kinds of knowledge1 and in those early days he was a ,socialist and a champion of labor1 also of the economic emancipation of women4 ,but at the age of twenty-six he chose a wife1 and illustrated the formula we used to sing in childhood3 ,needles and pins1 needles and pins1 ,when a man marries his trouble begins6 ,his wife bore him some children1 and then wished to resume her career as an actress4 ,strindberg objected to this1 and they quarreled1 and after seven years they parted4 ,the poet considered this an irremediable tragedy2 for he held a mystical idea1 that marriage is an actual union of flesh and spirit1 and to tear a couple apart is to maim them both4 ,strindberg put his agony into a book1 8,the ,confessions of a ,fool02 a ghastly record1 yet one can hardly keep from smiling over it4 ,the author preaches the doctrine that woman is inferior to man2 he pounds upon this theme--and then proceeds to tell you marital incidents which make it clear that the woman was fully a match for him6 ,strindberg believes that woman is inferior1 not merely physically1 intellectually and morally1 but biologically2 she is a half-way creature between man and child1 and it is her duty to submit herself in all things to the biologically superior male4 ,but nature for some reason has failed to inform her that she is inferior1 and the perverse creature insists upon trying to act as if she were equal2 so everything goes to wreck4 ,somebody said that ,herbert ,spencer's idea of a tragedy was a generalization killed by a fact4 ,strindberg's tragedy was the same1 but he never recognized it2 he clung to his generalization1 not merely through this marriage1 but through two others1 which failed in the same way1 and for the same reason4 ,it is true that some women are predatory2 it is true that a great many women abuse the power they get4 ,that may be expected of every enslaved race or class or sex4 ,but the only way to become fit for power is to exercise it1 and the only way to get it is to take it4 ,the women who broke ,strindberg's three marriages were like the suffragettes with hammers2 they were using the only arguments their opponents would heed4 ,as a result of their efforts1 some of us now live in a happier time1 having comrade-wives who do not abuse their share of power1 but co-operate with their husbands in carrying the burdens of life4 ,but whatever you think about ,strindberg's biological superiority1 you cannot deny the power of the tragedy he wrote upon his thesis4 ,it is called 8,the ,father10 and shows a man undermined and destroyed by a cunning1 determined woman1 who sets out to break him to her will4 ,also you have to admit the reality of 8,miss ,julia10 which portrays the degeneracy of the ruling classes in ,sweden4 ,this high-born young lady1 who starts an intrigue with a man-servant in her household1 might be a page out of a 8yellow0 ,sunday supplement in ,america4 ,strindberg came close to the line of insanity2 he spent two or three years in a sanitarium1 and wrote a book about these borderland states1 8,inferno40 ,then he took up with ,swedenborg1 and evolved into a ,christian mystic1 and went back into a second childhood of bible-worship4 ,but that did not keep him from carrying on frantic quarrels with his enemies1 and pouring out many volumes of personalities4 ,strangely enough1 there is a kind of impersonality in it all1 because the man is so tragically earnest4 ,he is trying to find the truth1 and puts himself before us as a document2 no one but ,rousseau has done this so completely4 ,therefore1 we think of ,strindberg as one of the great teachers4 ,let the artist give us truth1 and we can always find use for it4 ,,chapter ,,xcii ,,the ,,overman ,another great writer of this time was troubled about the problem of the ladies4 ,august ,strindberg married three1 and experienced three tragedies4 ,friedrich ,nietzsche sought to marry one1 but she would not have him2 after which he wrote contemptuously of them all4 ,despite the fact that he was a clergyman's son1 he suffered from hereditary syphilis1 and went insane--a tragic waste of the greatest genius of modern times4 ,nietzsche was born in #ahdd1 and became a professor of philology at a ,swiss university4 ,his health broke down from eye-strain at the age of thirty-five1 and he retired upon a small pension4 ,his insanity came at the age of forty-five1 and he lived eleven years longer1 slowly rotting to pieces1 and meantime growling like a wild beast4 ,nietzsche's enemies1 of course1 made the most of this cruel fate2 they said that he was insane all the time4 ,that is an easy way to dispose of his writings--easy for the average person1 who has never experienced such emotional states as ,nietzsche dealt with1 and does not wish to be troubled by them4 ,but a few who have experienced these states are in better position to decide4 ,nietzsche's mature work is perfectly sane2 it contains many contradictions1 but we have to permit an original mind to grow4 ,his masterpiece1 8,thus ,spake ,zarathustra10 contains the greatest imaginative writing of several centuries4 ,but we must remember that these books were written by a man who was ill and suffering atrociously4 ,he declared that every year meant for him two hundred days of pain4 ,his view of life is the product of a pain-driven mind1 like the ecstasy experienced by martyrs undergoing torture4 ,we do not expect ordered and systematic thought from such persons2 but we may learn from them strange secrets concerning the possibilities of the human spirit4 ,one of ,nietzsche's doctrines is the exaltation of the aristocratic over the democratic virtues4 ,he was the son of a ,prussian state pastor1 and he glorified war1 and was taken as the spiritual director of the invasion of ,belgium4 ,it would be easy for me to deal with him on that basis1 and draw and quarter him amid general acclamation4 ,the only trouble is that ,nietzsche is one of the pioneers of the moral life1 a conqueror of new universes for our race4 ,there are two sides to his message1 the positive and the negative4 ,on the positive side it is the record of an exalted poet1 proclaiming brotherhood1 service1 and consecration4 ,on its negative side it represents the fears and repugnances of an invalid1 shrinking from life which was too much for him1 and seeking refuge in his own visions1 where he could be master without interference from a hostile world4 ,where ,nietzsche loved something1 you will generally find it something great and noble2 where he hated something1 you will often find it a thing he failed to understand4 ,there were two subjects upon which he was entirely ignorant2 the first woman1 and the second economics4 ,this double ignorance distorted all his thought1 and has brought it about that his influence counts on the side of the forces he hated4 ,nietzsche agreed with the proposition of the present book1 that all the arts are propaganda4 ,he showed how those who were able to face life and to conquer made themselves a philosophy and art of self-assertion and development2 those who were afraid of life made a philosophy and art of self-sacrifice and renunciation4 ,nietzsche explained ,christianity as a slave religion1 evolved by the victims of ,roman imperialism2 he proclaimed himself ,antichrist1 and advocated a 8master morality40 ,nietzsche's supreme contribution is the interpretation of evolution2 he became the prophet and seer of this doctrine1 developing a concept of the ,overman1 a higher being into which the human race is destined to evolve4 ,bernard ,shaw has popularized the term ,superman2 but ,i venture to stick to ,overman1 which ,i used in 8,the ,journal of ,arthur ,stirling10 several years before 8,man and ,superman0 was published4 ,nietzsche might have chosen the term 8,supermensch0 if he had wished2 but he wrote 8,uebermensch40 ,this concept ,nietzsche set forth in 8,zarathustra0 with fervor and splendor of imagery1 a chant the like of which the ,german language had never known before4 ,ten years ago1 editing 8,the ,cry for ,justice10 made up of the world's revolutionary literature from thirty languages and five thousand years of history1 ,i gave the last place to a quotation from 8,zarathustra02 the reason being that it represents to me the ultimate of modern thought1 the greatest words in recent poetry4 ,i quote a portion of this passage3 ,man is a cord1 tied between ,beast and ,overman--a1 cord above an abyss4 ,a perilous arriving1 a perilous traveling1 a perilous looking backward1 a perilous trembling and standing still4 ,what is great in man is that he is a bridge1 and no goal2 what can be loved in man is that he is a going-over and a going-under4 ,i love them that know not how to live1 be it even as those going under1 for such are those going across4 ,i love them that are great in scorn1 because these are they that are great in reverence1 and arrows of longing toward the other shore4 ,you will note that these paragraphs celebrate the fame of the martyrs1 those who sacrifice themselves for the race4 ,are we not here right back in the spirit of ,jesus8 ,i do not mean ,christianity1 the thing that is taught in churches1 the creeds of the other-worldly2 ,i am referring to the revolutionary carpenter1 who taught brotherhood in its high heroic sense1 and proclaimed the kingdom of heaven upon earth4 ,nietzsche wrote and taught in that same heroic sense2 but because of his two great ignorances1 concerning women and concerning economics1 he could not make distinctions1 and save his message from being interpreted in the interest of class greed and materialism4 ,when we see the image of ,jesus set up in gold and jewels1 and carried forth to bless wholesale murder for the profit of the ,russian ,tsardom1 or of ,j4 ,p ,morgan ,company's international loans1 we are witnessing one of mankind's historic tragedies4 ,we are witnessing another when the message of ,friedrich ,nietzsche is taken up by ,bernhardi and the ,prussian ,junkers1 and used to sanctify that power which during the war ,i described as 8the ,beast with the ,brains of an ,engineer40 ,nietzsche loathed the ,prussian ,junkers1 and the whole ,prussian state machine4 ,he lived the life of an ascetic1 and wrote in spiritual terms2 when he talked about the 8strong10 he meant those that are great in reverence as well as in scorn4 ,but he could not analyze the different kinds of competition in which social beings engage2 he could not distinguish between those which encourage intellectual progress and those which strangle it4 ,he saw that in primitive societies war eliminates the degenerate2 he did not perceive that in modern capitalist society war has exactly the opposite effect1 preserving the weaklings and parasites1 and putting commercial hogs in power4 ,neither did he perceive how a system of hereditary privilege enthrones the sensualists and idlers1 the human types he most despised4 ,while young he came under the influence of ,richard ,wagner2 he read that pernicious secret document which ,wagner had prepared for his friend ,king ,ludwig1 explaining it as the duty of the artist to devise illusions to keep the masses patriotic and religious4 ,nietzsche absorbed that doctrine and it poisoned his social thought for life4 ,i have met with ridicule from sapient critics for praising ,zarathustra and at the same time proclaiming myself a ,socialist4 ,but just as it is possible by a deeper view to reconcile ,zarathustra and ,jesus1 so also it is possible to reconcile ,zarathustra and ,marx4 ,the free spirits and lofty idealists whom ,nietzsche dreamed will never be able to function in the world of international profiteers2 they are outcasts in such a world1 as ,nietzsche was in the ,junker world4 ,only when competition for money has been replaced by co-operative order will mankind take seriously those higher activities which were ,nietzsche's concern4 ,exactly the same thing applies to the war of the sexes2 it is not in quarreling with women1 like ,strindberg1 or in avoiding them1 like ,nietzsche1 that the happiness of man is found4 ,there is a saying of ,zarathustra most frequently quoted by his enemies3 8,when thou goest to woman forget not the whip40 ,that is taken to mean that man should dominate woman by brute power2 but ,georg ,brandes tells me that it does not mean that at all4 ,it means that you must not forget that the woman will seek to wield a whip over you if she can2 in other words1 the ,strindberg terror6 ,brandes declares that he has seen a photograph of ,nietzsche in company with the young lady whom he loved2 ,nietzsche in this photograph had a child's harness about his neck and shoulders1 and the woman had a whip in her hand4 ,that1 of course1 was play2 but ,freud has taught us that play is symbolic1 and perhaps it was this picture which ,nietzsche had in mind when he wrote his famous sentence4 ,anyhow1 this much is certain3 ,nietzsche did not know women4 ,except for this one unhappy love affair1 he took toward them the same attitude as the ,christian hermits and monks--and for the same reason1 because he wanted to live his inner life without disturbance4 ,so extremes meet1 and history repeats itself--the 8eternal recurrence0 which ,nietzsche taught6 ,through much of his life he had the devoted services of his sister2 she nursed him and cared for him during those dreadful years when he wandered about the room growling like a wild beast2 and after he was dead1 she edited his books and his letters4 ,man flees from woman--but he begins in a woman's arms1 and he ends there4 ,,chapter ,,xciii ,,the ,,octopus ,,cities ,modern civilization is a stepmother to poets2 it is crowded1 noisy and ugly1 and they run away and seek refuge in gardens1 or monasteries1 or dreams of a happier past4 ,but modern civilization is alive2 it is the life of hundreds of millions of human beings1 forging a new future4 ,and there comes a new kind of poet1 able to penetrate to the inner spirit of that future4 ,it was fitting that such a poet should be a ,belgian2 for ,belgium is the center of the new industrialism in ,europe4 ,here are great iron and steel plants1 and vast cobwebs of railroads1 and harbors to which the commerce of the world pours in4 ,the past and the future meet here1 for ,belgium has an old history and art2 it is a battle-ground of ,catholicism and ,protestantism1 of modern science and ancient mysticism1 of ,french revolution and ,german autocracy4 ,it is wealthy1 with all the class contrasts and antagonisms which modern capitalism brings4 ,emile ,verhaeren was born in #ahee1 of well-to-do retired parents4 ,he lived in the country1 but in ,belgium the country is close to the towns1 and the boy saw the river with the great ships1 the factories and the busy artisans1 a teeming life1 stimulating to the imagination4 ,he was educated in a ,jesuit school1 where they hoped to make a priest of him1 but did not succeed4 ,he studied law1 and led a wild1 freakish youth4 ,he had been writing verses since childhood1 ,latin verses1 and then the classical ,french ,alexandrines1 under the spell of ,victor ,hugo4 ,then came ,zola1 and young ,verhaeren horrified his parents and friends by a volume of poetry portraying the violent and brutal facts of ,flemish life4 ,they are a gross and drunken people--we see them in the paintings of ,rubens2 and it was a time when young poets were in revolt against false idealism1 and wanted to deal with reality1 the more crude and hideous the better4 ,from excess of animalism the ,belgian people revolt to the other extreme1 asceticism2 so the country is full of monks1 gloomy and sober1 living apart and contemplating the past with holy awe4 ,verhaeren wrote a second book1 in which he portrayed strange types of these devotees4 ,but he was content to admire them2 he did not join them4 ,the poet exists by virtue of the fact that he is more sensitive than the average man2 life hits him harder blows1 and he flies from one extreme to the other4 ,modern science took from ,verhaeren his ,catholic faith1 and there followed a period of pessimism1 a terrible psychic crisis4 ,like ,dostoievski and ,strindberg1 he came close to the border-line of insanity and suicide4 ,but his restless mind would not give up to any suffering2 he was thrilled even by the adventure of pain2 he loved life1 even though it held for him only the vision of death4 ,all things are themes for art2 so he wrote a book of nightmares1 a pilgrimage of neurasthenia4 ,the sick poet had fled from the noisy and brutal world2 he found his deliverance by coming back to it4 ,redemption lay in loving and understanding mankind in its manifold new activities4 ,those things which the poets generally affect to despise ,verhaeren now took up with ecstasy3 industrialism1 machinery1 the roar of cities1 the manifold activities of crowds1 in all these things he discovered a new power1 promising an infinitude of beauty4 ,verhaeren wrote in ,french1 and used a new form of rhymed free verse1 more obviously rhythmical than ,whitman's1 marvelously responsive to every throb of the poet's imagination4 ,it is a kind of verse to chant aloud1 an utterance of sweeping ecstasy4 ,verhaeren resembles ,whitman in many ways2 in his identification of himself with the toiling masses1 his sense of the multitude as a new being1 a thing with a life of its own4 ,like ,whitman he accepts the universe1 he sings the chant of humanity becoming ,god1 conquering nature1 and remaking existence in its own image4 ,walt ,whitman sang 8these states10 and saw them as one mighty1 triumphant land4 ,verhaeren also had a vision1 he was the prophet of the ,united ,states of ,europe4 ,he had lived in all its great capitals1 and knew and interpreted the forces which were bringing them together and making them one4 ,terrible places they are--8the octopus cities10 he calls them in the title of one of his volumes1 and portrays them as gigantic tentacular monsters1 sucking all the life-blood from the country4 ,no poet has ever approached ,verhaeren in the portrayal of the cruelty and loneliness and horror of these capitalist cities4 ,you will find in 8,the ,cry for ,justice0 a translation of one of these poems1 the most frightful picture of prostitution ever given in verse4 ,verhaeren welcomed science1 and proclaimed mass solidarity1 the surrender of the individual to the sweep of progress4 ,he became a prophet and preacher of what he called 8cosmic enthusiasm40 ,he was1 of course1 a ,socialist and revolutionist4 ,he wrote a lyrical drama called 8,the ,dawn10 which has been translated into ,english by ,arthur ,symonds4 ,here in a mixture of prose and verse he celebrates a hero who surrenders the citadel of capitalism to the masses1 and gives his life in the effort to abolish class conflict and build the happy future4 ,verhaeren wrote other plays which have not yet been translated or produced2 they do not conform to the rules of the drama for profit1 for they deal with humanity and not with sex4 ,but the new time is coming--and here is one of its prophets4 ,,chapter ,,xciv ,,the ,,inspired ,,parrakeet ,i remember the first poet ,i ever met in my youth2 one of the 8pure0 poets1 a dreamy soul1 who lived in the ugly city of ,new ,york1 and wrote about beauty in distant ,nineveh and ,tyre4 ,he earned his living in a book-store1 where he faded slowly1 and his hair came to look as if the moths had been feeding on it4 ,only once ,i saw fire in his eyes1 and that was when the name of ,swinburne was mentioned4 8,swinburne is a god60 he exclaimed4 ,yes1 ,algernon ,charles ,swinburne is no mere poet2 he is divinity1 before whose high altar the art-for-art's-sakers perform obeisance4 ,he was born in #ahcg1 of an aristocratic county family in the ,north of ,england4 ,so he always had plenty of money1 and lived his own life in the aristocratic fashion4 ,they sent him to ,eton at the age of twelve1 and then to ,oxford1 but respectability failed to 8take0 with him4 ,he was the strangest figure in which the soul of a poet was ever housed4 ,as a child he had been beautiful1 but something must have gone wrong with his glands1 so that his head grew faster than his body4 ,he developed a noble brow1 but a weak mouth and receding chin2 his enormous head was lighted by two bright green eyes1 and covered with a shock of vivid red hair4 ,when he became excited1 which he was liable to do at a moment's notice1 his arms and legs began to jerk convulsively1 and he would rush about the room1 orating vehemently1 perhaps hopping upon the sofa1 like a bright-colored parrakeet4 ,he was an omnivorous reader1 and knew all the poetry there was in the world--most of it by heart1 and would pour it out by the hour1 in ,latin1 ,greek1 ,french1 ,italian or ,english4 ,if he became too much excited1 he would suddenly have a fit and fall unconscious1 to the terror of the company2 but after a while he would come to1 just as lively and full of words as ever4 ,in his childhood and youth1 according to the ,english custom1 they filled him up with ,greek and ,latin verses2 he absorbed the bad as well as the good1 wine and women as well as song4 ,then he came under the spell of ,victor ,hugo1 who filled him with a fervor for liberty4 ,it is an interesting illustration of the influence a great poet can exert4 ,swinburne worshipped ,hugo with frenzied extravagance1 and remained a disciple of republicanism all through his seventy-two years2 and this without the slightest actual contact with republicanism1 without anything in his environment or his actions to explain such revolutionary fever4 ,worldly impracticability was carried to its last extreme in this combustible youth2 he always had to have somebody to take care of him1 and fell under the spell of one personality after another3 ,rossetti1 ,william ,morris1 ,mazzini1 and finally ,watts-,dunton1 who literally saved his life4 ,swinburne would come up to ,london and engage in what he called 8racketing0--by which he meant stimulating his frenzies with alcohol4 ,he would keep this up until he was completely prostrated1 and then his father or one of his friends would carry him off to the country and mount guard over him1 and there he would live a quiet and placid literary life until the world lured him forth again4 ,by the time he was forty he had carried his dissipation to such extremes that he was all but wrecked4 ,one by one his friends had to give him up1 and he was living in wretched lodgings at the point of death4 ,it was then that ,watts-,dunton took charge of his affairs once for all1 and turned his country house into a sort of literary sanitarium1 and kept the poet for thirty years1 strictly forbidding any but respectable citizens to call upon him4 ,here the queer little parrakeet hopped about in the library1 and gradually grew old and deaf1 and wrote a great deal of prose and verse of little consequence4 ,some critics fight with the moralists over the question1 ,is it better for a poet to die drunk and inspired1 or to live sober and dull8 ,my friend1 ,george ,sterling1 writes me on this point3 8,i still refuse1 probably from personal experience1 to believe that alcohol helps the artist to function at his best40 ,swinburne's first great work1 published at the age of twenty-eight1 was an imitation ,greek play1 8,atalanta in ,calydon40 ,as poetry it is marvelous2 nobody since ,shelley had poured out such a torrent of glorious words4 ,all the tricks of the trade are in it--how many you can learn from ,professor ,saintsbury1 who lists them3 8equivalence and substitution1 alternative and repetition1 rhymes and rhymeless suspension of sound1 volley and check of verse1 stanza construction1 line-and pause-moulding1 foot-conjunction and contrast40 ,such are the weapons in the armory of those who have read all the poetry there is in the world6 ,what else is there beside verbal splendor and technical tricks8 ,the answer is3 ,the familiar ,greek aristocratic personages1 struggling in vain against their gods2 the old ,greek fatalism and pessimism1 taken up as a literary exercise and carried to un-,hellenic extremes4 ,it might have puzzled you1 perhaps1 that a poet of republicanism and revolt should also be a poet of pessimism2 but you would have been ill-advised to ask the question of ,swinburne1 for once1 when a friend ventured to criticize his work1 he stared for a moment or two of horror1 then uttered a shrill scream1 and rushed upstairs to his room1 and seized his manuscript and spent hours tearing it into shreds and throwing it into the fire--and then spent the rest of the night rewriting it from memory6 ,swinburne could not think1 he could only feel1 and so he was capable of pouring his poetic frenzy into absolutely contradictory ideas4 ,so we have these magnificent choruses of 8,atalanta10 in which man's despair at his own fate is voiced with overwhelming poignancy3 ,for a day and a night and a morrow1 ,that his strength might endure for a span ,with travail and heavy sorrow1 ,the holy spirit of man4444 ,he weaves1 and is clothed with derision2 ,sows1 and he shall not reap2 ,his life is a watch or a vision ,between a sleep and a sleep4 ,but then1 if that be true1 what is the use of struggling for liberty and overthrowing tyrants8 ,what indeed is the use of writing beautiful verses and reading proofs and wrangling with publishers and critics8 ,manifestly1 no use whatever4 ,nevertheless1 ,swinburne would read a news item about ,napoleon the ,little1 and he would fly into another frenzy1 and write a poem in which he called for the blood of tyrants4 ,he collected all these into his 8,songs before ,sunrise10 which constitute one of the bibles of liberty4 ,when ,i meet an art-for-art's-saker1 ,i never fail to ask him if he has read ,swinburne's 8,prelude10 in which the poet describes his conversion to the cause of human service4 ,play then and sing2 we too have played1 ,we likewise1 in that subtle shade4 ,we too have twisted through our hair ,such tendrils as the wild ,loves wear1 ,and heard what mirth the ,mnads made4 ,such has been the poet's life2 but now he has reformed1 and taken up the duty of passing on the light of the intelligence to his fellows3 ,a little time that we may fill ,or with such good works or such ill ,as loose the bonds or make them strong ,wherein all manhood suffers wrong4 ,and that leads us by a natural transition to the 8,marching ,song10 a battle-cry of the revolution3 ,rise1 ere the dawn be risen2 ,come1 and be all souls fed2 ,from field and street and prison ,come1 for the feast is spread2 ,live1 for the truth is living2 wake1 for night is dead4 8,my other books are books10 ,swinburne declared1 8but #8,songs before ,sunrise' is myself40 ,his respectable biographer1 ,edmund ,gosse1 is both puzzled and shocked by this1 and points out how completely ,swinburne's hopes of republicanism have failed to be realized in the modern world4 ,yes2 the poet failed to see that the lords of finance1 the fat men of the bourgeoisie1 would subsidize autocracy and subsidize superstition1 as a means of riveting slavery upon the human mind and body for another century4 ,but let ,professor ,gosse take care of his health for a few years more1 and he may see that ,daylight which was heralded in the 8,songs before ,sunrise40 ,we have stepped ahead of our story and omitted to mention ,swinburne's earlier volume of miscellaneous work1 8,poems and ,ballads10 which was published shortly after 8,atalanta10 and gave the ,victorian age the worst shock of its existence4 ,this was the time of ,tennyson at his most mawkish1 the time of 8,maud0 and 8,enoch ,arden02 literary ,england had not seen anything really indecent since ,byron's 8,don ,juan10 nearly half a century ago4 ,but here came this young aristocrat--the son of an admiral1 and therefore beyond prosecution for anything that he might do--throwing out upon the world an inspired glorification of sexual and alcoholic riot4 ,swinburne was1 of course1 just as sincere in his praise of ,venus and the vine as he was in his praise of liberty2 more sincere1 in fact1 because he practiced what he preached in the former case1 but he omitted to go off and die in the cause of liberty as ,byron had done4 ,some of his licentious poetry is perfect from the technical point of view2 but1 on the other hand1 8,poems and ,ballads0 contains the worst combination of words ever put into a poem3 8the lilies and languors of virtue and the roses and raptures of vice40 ,it is pleasant to be able to record that ,swinburne had the wit to ridicule his own habit of silly alliteration2 see the parody called 8,nephelidia03 8,from the depth of the dreamy decline of the dawn through a notable nimbus of nebulous noonshine10 and so on4 ,in 8,thus ,spake ,zarathustra0 there is a doctrine of freedom1 which is summed up3 ,i ask you1 not free from what1 but free to what8 ,and that is what ,i should like to point out to young poets who uncritically accept ,swinburne as a god4 ,it is possible to be entirely free to do what you please1 and yet not please to do many silly and destructive things4 ,young poets are free to write as eloquent verses as they know how2 and they may put into those verses a celebration of all things beautiful and just and noble in the world4 ,on the other hand1 they may put in a celebration of debauchery2 and they may try it out for themselves1 and fall slaves to alcohol and drugs1 and end in the mad-house or a suicide's or drunkard's grave--like ,baudelaire and ,verlaine and ,musset and ,poe and ,dowson1 and that brilliant1 unhappy genius whose story we have next to read4 ,,chapter ,,xcv ,,the ,,green ,,carnation ,eight years ago ,frank ,harris published his two volumes entitled 8,oscar ,wilde3 ,his ,life and ,confessions40 ,i wrote him that it was one of the half dozen greatest biographies in the ,english language1 and he replied1 characteristically3 8,name the other five40 ,that story never fails to raise a laugh2 but in fairness to ,frank ,harris ,i ought to add that when ,i sat down and thought it over seriously ,i could not name the other five4 ,here is the story of a terrific human tragedy1 told plainly and completely1 with profound insight and deep pity4 ,how can the man who wrote it not know that it is great8 ,the subject of this sermon in action was born in ,dublin in #ahed4 ,his father was a wealthy baronet1 a physician who was accustomed to seduce his women-patients2 his mother was an excessively vain society poetess4 ,the son was burdened with the label ,oscar ,fingal ,o',flahartie ,wills ,wilde1 and received the usual public school and ,oxford education4 ,in these so-called 8public0 schools1 which are ruling class boarding-schools1 the boys live semi-monastic lives1 entirely withdrawn from woman's influence2 they are fed upon ,greek literature and art1 which glorifies homosexuality1 and therefore ,english upper-class life is rotten with this odious vice4 ,frank ,harris narrates that at the time of ,wilde's trial1 when general exposures on this subject were threatened1 great numbers of ,london's prominent club members suddenly discovered that they had important business on the ,continent4 ,oscar ,wilde had extraordinary gifts2 a vivid imagination1 a flow of eloquence1 and charming wit4 ,he was the perfect fine flower of leisure-class art1 a gentleman about town1 a literary dandy who learned the lesson that it pays to advertise1 and made himself the most talked about man in ,london by dressing in knee breeches and silk hose1 carrying a large sunflower in his hand1 and greeting men and women with sweet impertinences4 ,there is a satiric portrait of this elegant 8esthete0 in ,robert ,hichens' novel1 8,the ,green ,carnation40 ,oscar wrote comedies dealing with the ,london world of fashion in which he lived4 ,these plays delighted that world1 and still delight audiences of the fashionable4 ,frank ,harris regards them as imperishable classics2 and all ,i can do is to record the fact that they put me to sleep4 ,nearly twenty years ago ,i saw 8,the ,importance of ,being ,earnest0 in ,new ,york1 and cannot recall that ,i was ever more bored in a theater4 ,the interest of the play is supposed to lie in its 8smart0 dialogue1 and the formula for that smartness is one which anyone can learn in two minutes4 ,take any statement involving the simple common sense of mankind1 the moral heritage of the race for countless ages2 and then make an epigram proclaiming the opposite1 and you have a 8line0 for a society play4 8,charity creates a multitude of sins4444 ,it is better to be good-looking than to be good4444 ,all charming people are spoiled4444 ,a man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her4444 ,it is a dangerous thing to reform anyone4444 ,the real drawback to marriage is that it makes one unselfish4444 ,democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people4444 ,there is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book4 ,books are well written or badly written4444 ,the sphere of art and the sphere of ethics are absolutely distinct and separate40 ,a man who is absorbed in useful work1 and therefore has few impulses to depravity1 can encounter such ,wildeness with indifference2 but the average man1 who is never sure of his own self-control1 and who has sons and daughters to train in as much decency as he can1 is made frantic by such perversity1 the deliberate bedeviling of the wits of our blindly struggling humanity4 ,these 8epigrams0 of ,oscar ,wilde are like the snapping of a whip-lash in the face of men's everyday moral sensibility4 ,so naturally this too-clever young esthete was cordially loathed1 and his enemies whetted their knives for him4 ,oscar came over to ,america to exhibit his whimsicalities to the wives and daughters of our steel kings and pork packers4 ,to the custom's officer he remarked3 8,i have nothing to declare but my genius02 and so his success was assured4 ,he went back to ,london and wrote more plays1 one of them1 8,salome10 assuredly the most cruel1 cold1 and disgusting piece of lewdness in the ,english language4 ,its heroine is the young daughter of ,king ,herod1 who attempts to seduce ,john the ,baptist to her sensual desires1 and when he repels her1 has him executed1 and has his head brought in upon a platter1 and strips herself as nearly naked as stage-customs allow1 and dances before this bloody object and fondles and kisses it4 ,the climax of modern art depravity was reached when ,richard ,strauss set this drama to elaborate and costly music4 ,when ,i saw audiences of bedizened and bejewelled fat beasts1 male and female1 having their sick nerves thrilled by this 8grand0 opera1 ,i knew that ,european capitalism was ready for the slaughterman's ax4 ,out of these plays ,oscar reaped much money1 and spent it in eating too much1 drinking too much1 and pursuing his cultured vices4 ,among his favorites was a young heir of the nobility1 who has since become ,lord ,alfred ,douglas1 assuredly the most disagreeable little wretch that ever displayed himself in the ,british world of letters4 ,lord ,alfred's father1 the ,marquis of ,queensbury1 made an effort to separate his son from ,wilde1 and in so doing he wrote letters concerning ,wilde which brought about a great literary scandal4 ,it is the privilege of elegant ,british gentlemen to pursue their vices without interference2 but they must display discretion1 and not step upon the toes of marquises4 ,oscar ,wilde brought suit for slander against ,queensbury2 and his lordship rallied his aristocratic friends1 defended himself successfully1 and then had the audacious playwright arrested and prosecuted for sodomy4 ,the ordinary ,british citizen had1 of course1 no knowledge of the inside circumstances of this case2 all he saw was that a writer of nasty plays tripped jauntily into the limelight and brought a libel suit against a father for trying to save his son4 ,of the fact that the father was a bad one1 and the son worse1 and that the courts were being used to maintain a corrupt ruling class--those things the average ,englishman did not know4 ,he will never know them until there is a ,socialist daily press in ,england1 with the right to tell the truth about the ruling class1 something which at present the libel laws prevent4 ,here is material for a drama1 far greater than any that ,wilde wrote2 and ,frank ,harris gives us the whole story4 ,in the early part of it he sees ,oscar clearly as the pitiful victim of his own will-less nature2 but when the tragedy of this nature reaches its climax1 ,harris lets himself be tempted into offering ,wilde to us in a new rle1 that of a persecuted hero and martyred genius4 ,much as ,harris may abhor ,oscar's sin1 he abhors the leading ,british virtues still more2 so he is in the position of ,milton dealing with ,satan--he cannot keep from sympathizing with his character1 in spite of logic4 ,to be sure1 he gives us the facts1 so that we can judge for ourselves1 if we have the brains2 and we must try to be worthy of that trust6 ,it seems evident enough that ,oscar was sent to prison1 not because of his genius1 nor yet because of his vices1 but simply because he attacked in a conspicuous and aggravating way a member of the hallowed ruling caste of ,britain4 ,you may call that turning the tragedy into a ,socialist tract2 but a man cannot interpret any case of social persecution unless he sees its economic implications--unless1 in other words1 he understands the class struggle4 ,if ,frank ,harris had been a conscious social revolutionist1 his book would have been more powerful and convincing1 because he would have been less tempted to blame individuals for evils which are social in their origin4 ,he would have given us an economic interpretation of ,oscar1 the spoiled darling of a putrescent leisure class1 thrown overboard1 like ,jonah1 as a sacrifice in a middle-class hurricane of virtue4 ,oscar ,wilde was convicted and sent to prison2 and of course ,frank ,harris does not like prisons--he1 too1 has been sent there by the ,british ruling caste4 ,it is only natural that he should overlook in his book the significance of the fact which he himself records1 that this imprisonment was the best thing that ever happened to ,oscar4 ,harris interceded for him1 and was able to get him good food and the right to have his books2 he tells us that he noticed during his visits a 8spiritual deepening0 in ,oscar1 due to the rigid disciplining of his selfish nature4 ,he was never so well or so much in possession of his mental faculties as when he came out2 but immediately he went back to his vomit1 and ate and drank and loafed himself to death1 according to the customs prevailing in that putrescent leisure class4 ,it seems to me that the true conclusion to be drawn from ,frank ,harris' book is that decadent poets should be sent to prison and kept there permanently4 ,anything to save them from smart society6 ,while ,oscar was at large1 the pet of the cultured rich1 he idled and wrote futile plays2 but when he was locked up1 he took life seriously1 and wrote great literature3 8,de ,profundis10 a study of his spiritual reactions to his disgrace2 and 8,the ,ballad of ,reading ,gaol10 a supremely eloquent and noble poem1 the poet's excuse for having lived4 ,reading these two works we say1 by all means let us have prisons for will-less men2 places where such unhappy beings may have as much self-government as they can use1 together with plain wholesome food1 moderate work outdoors1 and enforced abstinence from alcohol and tobacco and drugs4 ,having set up such prisons1 let us keep in them1 not merely all thieves and highwaymen and esthetes1 but men of fashion1 princes1 lords and dukes1 bishops1 stock-brokers and fat persons4 ,says ,mrs4 ,ogi3 8,you said you were going to label all your jokes40 ,her husband1 after meditating1 remarks3 8,what ,oscar needed was the right sort of a wife40 ,she answers3 8,almost any wife would have told him that a guilty man cannot bring a slander suit40 ,,chapter ,,xcvi ,,the ,,white ,,chrysanthemum 8,what troubles me10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi1 8is that you call this a book of all the arts1 and continue to deal with literature40 8,in modern times each of the arts has developed a complicated technique2 and in order to analyze them all and show what they mean1 one would have to know much more than ,i know4 ,but every now and then it happens that a musician or painter or sculptor is not satisfied with his own art1 but uses mine2 and then ,i have him60 8,oh1 that mine enemy would write a book10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi4 ,james ,mc,neill ,whistler wrote a book2 he gave it a title3 8,the ,gentle ,art of ,making ,enemies as ,pleasingly ,exemplified in ,many ,instances1 ,wherein the ,serious ,ones of this ,earth1 ,carefully ,exasperated1 ,have ,been ,prettily ,spurred on to ,unseemliness and ,indiscretion1 ,while ,overcome by an ,undue ,sense of ,right40 ,the pages of this book are covered with butterflies which the painter adopted as the signature for his work4 ,these butterflies are defiant1 care-free1 insolent2 manifestly1 some one has taken great pains with them1 and with the volume through which they flutter4 ,studying it1 we learn what kind of man it takes to succeed as a leisure-class portrait-painter4 ,whistler was born in ,boston1 his father being a major in the ,united ,states ,army4 ,we have seen him 8let out0 from ,west ,point2 he was 8deficient in chemistry40 ,he went to ,paris and lived the ,bohemian student life for some years1 and imbibed those ideas concerning the non-moral nature of art1 which are a symptom of the disintegration of our ruling classes4 ,whistler settled in ,london4 ,he was unknown and an ,american2 he had new ideas about painting1 and the ,royal ,academy would have nothing to do with him1 so he had to fight his way4 ,a fiery little man1 with wavy black locks and one very singular white lock over his forehead1 he trained his eyebrows to stand out fiercely1 and wore a little imperial and a monocle1 and carried a very long cane1 and a white chrysanthemum always in his buttonhole4 ,he cultivated truculence1 and his life was a succession of conspicuous libel suits and public quarrels1 kept alive by letters to the newspapers4 ,to a little group of his intimates ,whistler could be a charming companion and host2 but when he went out into the world1 he put on armor like a hard-shelled crab1 and was ready to bite the head off the first person who got in his way4 ,he would hit a man in the eye for differing with him indiscreetly2 once in a theater he beat a critic over the head with his cane4 ,in deadly seriousness he challenged ,george ,moore to a duel1 and appointed seconds1 and published ,moore's failure to reply4 ,because he was dissatisfied with the price paid him for the portrait of a certain lady1 he painted out the lady's face4 ,he undertook to decorate a dining-room for a wealthy shipowner1 and became fascinated with the idea of covering walls and ceiling with an endless number of peacocks in gold and blue4 ,he worked over this in a frenzy for months4 ,the shipowner wanted his house1 but could not have it2 ,whistler turned it into an art gallery1 and brought the critics as to a public show4 ,the man had agreed to pay five hundred guineas for the decorating2 in consideration of the unforeseen amount of work1 he raised the price to a thousand4 ,but ,whistler insisted upon two thousand1 and flew into a furious rage with the man1 and carried the row into the newspapers1 and painted most odious caricatures of the man and exhibited them publicly4 ,whistler was not content to be a great painter2 he was also a lecturer1 man of letters1 and historian4 ,his idea was that when he overcame one of his enemies by a witty retort he made history1 and when he collected these retorts and the stories of his quarrels into a book1 he wrote history4 ,the collecting was suggested to him by a journalist1 who proposed the title1 and was authorized to gather the various items from newspaper files4 ,after the work was done and the book prepared and printed1 ,whistler decided to take the credit for himself1 so he sent the journalist a check for ten pounds and dismissed him4 ,naturally the poor fellow insisted that he had rights in the matter1 and tried to bring out the book in ,belgium and in ,paris4 ,whistler pursued him and had him arrested and heavily fined2 he took over the man's idea and title1 and so we have the beautiful volume with the fancy butterflies4 ,whistler's conduct throughout the affair was brutal1 and his book ,i am inclined to call the most hateful thing in print4 ,its content is the egotism of a highly intelligent and persistent hornet4 ,whistler has1 to be sure1 some ideas to advocate4 ,he reprints a lecture called 8,ten ,o'clock10 named from the after-dinner hour at which it was given in ,london4 ,to his well-fed audience he explained that art is for artists1 who alone can understand it2 art has nothing to do with the people1 who only degrade it when they touch it4 ,moreover1 art has no concern with morality1 whether individual or national2 8in no way do our virtues minister to its worth1 in no way do our vices impede its triumph40 ,as for painting1 ,whistler declared it to be a matter of the arrangement of line1 form and color2 it has nothing to do with any other idea1 not even with the subject being painted4 ,to quote the painter's own words3 8,the subject matter has nothing to do with the harmony of color40 ,in order to emphasize this point of view ,whistler took to calling his portraits by such names as 8,harmony in ,green and ,rose10 8,caprice in ,blue and ,silver10 8,symphony in ,white10 8,variations in ,violet and ,green10 8,arrangement in ,black and ,gray40 ,one of his most famous paintings showed fireworks at night1 and was called 8,nocturne in ,black and ,gold40 ,john ,ruskin wrote of it3 8,i never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public's face40 ,so there was a picturesque and sensational libel suit1 and the jury awarded ,whistler damages of one farthing1 that is1 half a cent4 ,that was not enough to pay his lawyer's fees1 and so the painter went into bankruptcy and spent a few years in ,europe4 ,what is the meaning of this art doctrine so defiantly enunciated8 ,the answer is1 it is an extension of the artist's egotism2 the snobbery of his profession and his caste1 in every way and from every point of view an anti-social and predatory thing4 ,here we are in ,london1 the heart and brain of the ,british ,empire1 at that time the greatest agency of exploitation in the world4 ,here is wealth and fashion1 representing the wrung-out sweat and blood1 not merely of enslaved ,british workers1 but of enslaved hundreds of millions of black and brown and yellow races4 ,here dwell the masters1 and they wish to flaunt their splendor2 heedless of the groans and the agony1 the clamor of all the misery of mankind1 they command a dining-room painted over with gold and blue peacocks1 or hung with portraits of their splendid predatory selves and their lovely parasitic females4 ,and here come the swarms of painters competing for their attention1 seeking to flatter their vanity and awe their ignorance4 ,one hornet a little more venomous than the rest is able to impress his hornetry upon them1 to stir their greed by the possibility that his paintings may some day be sold for thousands of pounds4 ,so they decide to have themselves 8done0 by this strange genius4 ,they come to his studio and spend months of torment standing or sitting for him1 while he fusses and frets1 and paints and wipes out and paints again1 taking infinite pains to see that the ladies' dresses are made of exactly the right quality of muslin1 cut and stitched in exactly the right way--because there is one certain precise kind of muslin dress which is art1 and any other kind is something else4 ,all this is called 8beauty02 all this has laws1 so ,whistler tells us1 as definite and determinable as the laws of physics or chemistry4 ,beauty is a thing permanent and immortal1 and independent of all other qualities--morality1 justice1 health1 truth1 honesty4 ,the answer is3 all this is poisonous nonsense1 handed out to the rich by those who exploit their vanity4 ,art without morality is simply art produced for patrons who have no morality by artists who have no morality4 ,as to the permanence of such art1 the answer is that its standards are at every moment subject to the attack of more clever devisers of new forms of folly and pretense4 ,the proper way to cut a muslin dress today is an absurd way to cut it tomorrow2 and the same applies to harmonies of color and outlines of form4 ,the ,turks cherish fatness in women1 because they like to be comfortable in their harems2 the early ,christians thought that emaciation was beautiful1 because it prepared them for heaven2 ,whistler1 wishing to flatter the aristocratic conceit of his patrons1 paints them abnormally tall and lean1 because that is the snobbish notion in fashion at the moment4 ,whistler was a great artist in the technical sense2 that is1 he learned to put paint on canvas in such a way as to convey an impression of reality1 not merely physical but emotional and spiritual4 ,he was a terrific worker1 as any man must be to succeed in the fierce competition of modern life4 ,he took his art with seriousness2 and it happened that twice in his lifetime something lifted him above the empty theories in which he gloried4 ,the first time was when he painted his mother4 ,here was a gentle1 sensitive1 sweet-faced1 devout ,presbyterian old lady1 with whom all his childhood memories were bound up2 he painted her sitting with her hands in her lap1 and her gray hair brushed down and covered with an old-fashioned lace cap4 ,he called it 8,arrangement in ,black and ,gray02 and that is all right1 because black and gray are old lady's colors4 ,but he would have described the painting even better if he had given it a moral title3 8,arrangement in ,reverence and ,affection40 ,and then came ,carlyle2 poor1 bewildered1 dyspeptic1 struggling old prophet from ,scotland1 he looked at ,whistler's portrait of his mother and loved it1 and consented to let the painter do the same thing for him4 ,so here is another study1 posed in the same way1 and called 8,arrangement in ,black and ,gray10 instead of 8,arrangement in ,pity and ,pathos40 ,these two pictures have human feeling and moral meaning2 therefore they are the two which have been reproduced1 and which everybody knows and loves4 ,that is the answer to ,whistler's art theories2 but of course it is an answer which he himself would have scorned--he would have made a witticism on it1 and got out a new edition of 8,the ,gentle ,art of ,making ,enemies40 8,this victory is not yours10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi4 8,it is ,death's40 ,,chapter ,,xcvii ,,the ,,duel ,,of ,,wit ,some years ago a story was told me concerning a certain eminent man in ,england4 ,this man came from the common people2 he possesses one of the finest minds in ,england1 and he is the champion of all things generous and free in letters and life4 ,the lady who told me the story1 herself a well-known novelist1 was writing about the particular section of society from which this man sprung1 and in which he had lived his boyhood2 she needed an item of local color1 and asked him how such people pronounce a certain word4 ,the man flushed1 and demanded3 8,how should ,i know80 ,i thought this story one of the most awful ,i had ever heard2 and the lady novelist was shocked when she saw how ,i took it1 for she had not meant to tell anything so serious about her friend4 ,she tried to explain to me1 it wasn't really so bad as it seemed2 the pressure of caste feeling is so strong in ,england that a man is irresistibly driven to cover up his humiliating past4 ,i tell the incident as preliminary to a discussion of ,george ,meredith4 ,here was a devoted servant of the muses1 a master of his craft1 who won a quite unique position among his contemporaries4 ,the public knew him not2 to the end of his life his books had little sale1 and he was compelled to support himself by odd jobs of journalism and publisher's reading4 ,but to the inner circle of letters his name became a kind of secret password2 he was the choice and precious one1 the poet's poet and the novelist's novelist1 and the little country nook where he dwelt was a shrine to which the distinguished pilgrims traveled from ,england and ,america and the ,continent4 ,but over this great writer's life there hung a dark shadow2 a tragic secret1 hidden from the world1 dimly guessed only by a few of the inner circle4 ,what had been the master's early life8 ,he never spoke of it4 ,where had he spent his childhood8 ,no one knew4 ,where had he been born8 ,the government was collecting some kind of census1 and put the question to its great novelist1 and he lied2 he invented an imaginary birthplace4 ,so he lived safe from scandal1 and only after his death was the dreadful truth revealed4 ,his grandfather had been a tailor to naval officers6 ,his father likewise had been a tailor1 and failing in business1 had gone to ,south ,africa and become a tailor there4 ,his son had nothing to do with him and never spoke of him4 ,what there is so especially dreadful about a tailor you will have to ask some ,englishman to explain to you4 ,i personally have known tailors who were exceedingly kind and generous men2 ,i have known tailors who were students and thinkers and devoted workers in the ,socialist movement4 ,all that a tailor may be2 ,i suppose he may even be a saint4 ,there is only one thing which he can never by any possibility be1 and that is an ,english gentleman4 ,and ,george ,meredith aspired to be an ,english gentleman2 he wrote about ,english gentlemen in all the infinite subtleties of their relationship to other ,english gentlemen1 and more especially to ,english ladies4 ,he wished to be1 not an interloper and observer1 tolerated because of his cleverness with the pen2 he wished to be an authentic member of the caste1 so secure that he might exercise that most cherished of all the privileges of the caste--to ridicule other members who fall away from the perfect caste ideal4 ,do you think that ,i am making too much of this frailty of ,george ,meredith8 ,i answer that it is the key to the understanding of everything he wrote4 ,stop and think what it means that a man who possessed one of the great intellects of his time1 who had all the wisdom of all the ages at his command1 should be so bowed down with awe before the spirit of caste that he was willing to lie about himself4 ,i do not mean merely that such a man's whole life would become a pose2 that he would pretend to be abnormally spiritual and ascetic1 when as a matter of fact he was strongly attracted to lark-pies2 that he would study his features1 and observing that he had a refined and sensitive profile1 would place himself at the window in such a position that his adorers would gaze upon this profile during the course of their visit4 ,what ,i mean is that this man would have a caste-ridden mind2 the subtleties of caste distinction1 the minute details of appearance and conduct and thought by which caste superiority is manifested and maintained--this is the stuff out of which the man's novels would be made1 and the theme upon which his superfine intellect would be concentrated4 ,and so it is in the ,meredithian universe4 ,the dark1 grim1 vaguely shadowed ,nemesis of the ,greeks is gone2 ,jehovah with his thunders has been laid away with the other rubbish in the garret2 what is left1 to dominate the lives of men and women1 to blast their hopes and lure them to ruin and despair1 is social convention4 ,and all such convention may be boiled down into one formula3 thou shalt not break into a caste higher than that to which you were born4 ,you may have money1 and try it2 you may pretend to have money1 and try it2 but in both cases alike you will fail4 ,meredith gives us masterpieces in the way of impostors trying to break in2 he is even willing1 under the veil of art1 to use his own tragic life-story1 and in 8,evan ,harrington0 he tells about a tailor's son who tries to break in4 ,he turned such blasts of ridicule upon the poor tailor family and the poor tailor state of being1 that ,meredith's tailor father down in ,south ,africa was shriveled up with shame1 and could not thereafter endure to hear his son's novels discussed4 ,likewise1 women fail to break into the sacred caste4 ,they have beauty1 they have wit1 but nothing avails4 ,the creator of 8,diana of the ,crossways0 lays himself out to convince us that this heroine is the most brilliant conversationalist that ever graced a ,london dinner-table4 ,but she had to have money1 and so she sells a government secret to a great newspaper1 and being discovered1 is thrown out4 ,and if ,diana failed1 with all her worldly gifts1 what hope for poor ,lucy ,feverel1 who had nothing but country graces1 natural loveliness of body1 and sweetness and kindness and unselfishness of spirit8 ,the 8ordeal0 of ,richard ,feverel lies in the fact that being a son of a rigid ,english gentleman1 rigidly trained according to an ideal system1 he falls in love with a country flower1 and instead of seducing her according to the custom of the caste1 he marries her4 ,so1 of course1 the pair of them are trampled4 ,the defenders of ,meredith will say that he does not desire such a state of affairs2 he merely portrays it1 because it exists4 ,my answer to that is the familiar one1 that art is propaganda4 ,if ,george ,meredith had believed in overthrowing the caste system in ,england he could surely have found ways to convey that fact to us4 ,he might have begun with his own life2 he might have taken his stand on a pedestal and said3 8,i1 who know myself to be a highly intellectual novelist1 am the son and grandson of tailors1 and be pleased to make what you can of that40 ,if ,meredith had realized vitally and vividly the anti-social nature of the caste system1 and especially how that system is the very negation and death of art--surely he would have found space in his many novels for at least one character who has a little success in the effort to hold his head up against the power of snobbery4 ,remember1 this was a time in which ,alfred ,harmsworth1 gutter-journalist1 became an earl1 and ,keir ,hardie1 pit-boy1 became a labor hero4 ,but ,meredith's caste-bound characters fail1 and fail without any hint that they might have succeeded4 ,i do not wish to be unjust to this brilliant novelist1 who was a modern man in many ways4 ,he was entirely free from that religiosity which blighted ,tennyson's mind4 ,he was clear-sighted about love1 seeing that it is a thing of flesh and spirit1 and must be both1 or neither4 ,also he stood valiantly for the rights of ladies to be educated1 and to have their talents recognized1 and to dispose of their own personalities4 ,in his old age he advanced the proposition that all marriages should be for a term of years1 and that at the end of the term the parties should be free to remarry or not1 as they wished4 ,that this most sensible idea did not raise more of a storm was because most persons in ,britain took it for granted that the novelist must be joking4 ,but as a rule what we get from ,meredith is not social criticism in its broad sense1 but merely caste criticism1 the self-discipline of the privileged orders4 ,meredith's greatest novel is 8,the ,egoist10 a quite amazing study of one of these superior males1 a creature who has been brought up from infancy to regard his sublime self as the purpose for which his own family exists1 and one of a small group of select persons for whom the ,british ,empire1 and therefore the world exist4 ,meredith lays him bare for us in every turn and movement of his being1 and we loathe him heartily1 and sympathize with the series of females with whom he dallies in courtship4 ,meredith is one of those super-sophisticated novelists who are unwilling to allow us to be interested in a course of events4 ,the intellect in him has eaten up and sterilized the emotions4 ,in reading him we are tormented by a feeling that his story and his characters would be delightful if only he would give them a chance2 but he has such a brilliant style1 he has so many ideas to convey to us1 and so much shining wit and corruscating metaphor to display4 ,it is like an exhibit of fireworks1 which can be most ravishing for a few minutes2 you catch your breath1 and think you have never seen anything more lovely4 ,but after an hour or so you decide that fireworks lack variety4 ,this infinitely subtle and delicate1 witty and charming personality invites us to sit with him as gods upon ,olympus1 to look down upon the tragic fate of mortals1 and find pleasure in the irony of their failures4 ,as in the case of ,corneille1 we are concerned with the strife and clash of aristocratic egotisms2 we take part in deadly intrigues1 and in duels without mercy4 ,but times have changed1 and now no blood is shed1 no corpses cover the ground2 it is a duel of wit1 with a death-blow in a phrase or the lifting of an eye-brow4 ,watching the conflict1 we find ourselves asking1 precisely as we asked with ,corneille3 ,what have we to do with these puppets8 ,how do they concern us8 ,what reality is there1 what permanence to the conventions which dominate their puppet minds8 ,what real wisdom is there behind their volleys of cleverness8 ,so we realize that we are still in the ,victorian age2 and ,victoria and boredom are two words for one thing4 ,,chapter ,,xcviii ,,the ,,cultured-,,class ,,historian ,we are getting down to modern times1 and have come to the first great artist of whom ,i can say that with my own eyes ,i saw him4 ,shortly before the war1 coming out of the dining-room of the ,new ,reform ,club in ,london1 my host1 ,h4 ,g4 ,wells1 stopped me and whispered3 8,there sits the ,great ,cham40 ,he may have said 8,great ,buddha0 or 8,great ,jupiter02 anyhow1 ,i looked1 and seated at a table in solitary state was a large elderly gentleman1 with large bald head shining whitely1 and jaws moving meditatively4 ,i knew him from his pictures2 and besides1 there was at that time only one ,great ,cham1 or ,great ,buddha1 or ,great ,jupiter of international letters4 ,i did not ask to meet him1 because1 having read him1 ,i understood the aesthetic proprieties1 and did not wish to surprise a ,great ,master with his mouth full of lunch4 ,also1 the days of my discipleship had long since passed1 and ,i was not sure if ,i would be able to think of just the proper delicate subtlety with which to convey my attitude to one whom ,i had once revered1 and now regarded with affection because of reverence remembered4 ,that sentence is a little longer and more subtle than ,i usually write--such being the effect upon one's style of merely thinking about ,henry ,james4 ,in my youth ,i wanted to know the great world1 and who could tell me with such compelling authority8 ,i read everything he had written up to that time--no small task1 some forty volumes1 many of them fat4 ,i stuck to it day and night for a couple of months1 and then wrote an essay1 8,the ,leisure-,class ,historian10 which1 alas1 no editor could be found to publish1 and which was consumed1 with all the rest of my belongings except one night-shirt1 in the ,helicon ,hall fire4 ,coming back to the task at this interval1 ,i realize that ,i gave ,henry ,james too broad a title2 he is 8the cultured-class historian40 ,he knows of the existence of the uncultivated mob of idle rich1 the 8high-feeding1 champagne-quaffing1 orchid-arranging10 as he describes them2 but his theme is that small section of the rich who possess aesthetic sensibilities1 and withdraw in haughty aloofness from high-feeding1 champagne-quaffing1 and orchid-arranging1 and live fastidious lives devoted to the cultivation of beauty4 ,the word 8beauty0 ,henry ,james understands in the broadest sense2 it covers not merely the things you look at1 but the things you do and the things you think4 ,you recognize it by its being elegant1 dignified and restrained4 ,to an outsider it might appear cold1 but the ,master admits you to the inside1 and you discover that it is passionate1 quivering with feeling4 ,but it sternly checks its impulses1 and seldom permits itself to do anything except to think about the problems confronting it1 to analyze these problems in minute detail1 to pile up subtlety and complication concerning them--literally whole mountains of complication2 or perhaps 7since1 when you are reading or writing or discussing ,henry ,james1 you anticipate many variations of metaphor1 and endless subtle shadings of metaphor1 and parenthetical disquisitions interpreting and qualifying1 and still further1 as it were1 intensifying metaphor--each separate complication1 you will note1 set apart from other complications by a comma7 it would convey a more accurate impression of the authentic ,jamesian manner1 if ,i were to say that he builds towering structures of subtle sophistication1 which structures you1 with joy and excitement of the mind1 see rising1 unexpectedly splendid1 before you1 revealing new possibilities of penetration into the refinements of sensibility1 as well as new possibilities of sentence structure1 which convey1 by infinite variation of shadings1 a sense1 or1 as it were1 almost a sensation1 of the actuality of exceptional mental experience4 ,such are the great rambling sentences1 through which you stagger and gasp your way4 ,you keep on1 because you find that the old boy is really saying something4 ,he is not delighting in intricacy and smartness for their own sake1 as you so often feel to your annoyance with ,meredith2 he is not deliberately confusing you with useless obscure detail like ,browning2 he is really making a heroic effort to convey some complicated intricacy in the mental processes of people who not merely think1 but who think about thinking1 and think about thinking about thinking4 ,henry ,james was born in ,new ,york in #ahdc1 his father being a theological writer4 ,his elder brother1 ,william1 became a popular professor of psychology at ,harvard1 thus giving rise to the jest that 8,william is a psychologist who writes like a novelist1 and ,henry is a novelist who writes like a psychologist40 ,henry was taken abroad and educated in ,england1 ,france and ,switzerland1 which had the effect of cutting his roots from under him4 ,at the age of twenty-six he moved permanently to ,england1 and from that time made his home there1 with occasional trips to the ,continent4 ,he was a sensitive youth1 quiet and shy2 he suffered from spinal trouble1 and liked to sit quietly in drawing-rooms and listen to other people talk4 ,then he would go apart for long periods1 and reflect upon what he had heard1 and weave it into stories4 ,he was grateful to his friends if they would tell him their troubles1 because that provided him with copy2 but he never told anyone his own troubles1 and his friends lost sight of the possibility that anything might ever have happened to him personally4 ,edmund ,gosse1 who became his intimate1 tells how in his old age ,james1 walking up and down in a garden one evening1 was suddenly moved to open his heart4 ,looking up at a light in the house1 he was reminded of a scene long1 long ago1 when he had stood in a street one rainy night1 looking up thus to a lighted window1 expecting to see a face1 but the face had not come4 ,that was all of the story2 but ,mr4 ,gosse was thrilled1 even appalled4 ,actually1 once upon a time1 something had happened to the ,master6 ,it would perhaps not be indelicate of us to feel warranted in assuming that this something had to do with the relation of the sexes4 ,we note that this relation is1 like everything else in the ,henry ,james world1 fastidious1 reserved1 and governed by the aesthetic sensibilities4 ,these people do not love1 they talk about loving2 and as years pass1 and the later manner grows1 their talk comes more and more to deal with the condition of having been loved4 ,in 8,daisy ,miller10 an early story which made the young author famous1 we see an innocent ,american girl in ,rome1 who to her horror receives an improper advance from a young ,italian4 ,in 8,madame de ,mauves0 we see an ,american lady1 unhappily married to a ,frenchman in ,paris1 tempted by passion for a true young ,american4 ,but when we come to the great long novels with the great long sentences of the 8third manner10 we find ourselves dealing with the fact that once upon a time1 long1 long ago1 a man and a woman committed an impropriety1 and now somebody else is slowly finding out about it1 to the general horror and dismay4 ,thus 8,the ,golden ,bowl10 seven hundred and eighty-nine closely printed pages1 dealing with the mental and emotional reactions of a woman who has an intimate woman friend1 and discovers that her husband has at some past period been the lover of this friend4 ,or 8,what ,maisie ,knew10 in which we discover an ancient intrigue through the eyes of the little daughter of the intriguing woman4 ,perhaps you think you know what obscenity is1 but you get a new revelation of its possibilities when you proceed through the mind of a child to pick up hints and allusions of the elders1 and piece them into a pattern of fornication4 ,henry ,james1 the son of an ,american theological writer1 acquired1 like ,hawthorne1 an inside knowledge of ,puritanism1 and in his early novels he took the ,new ,england point of view toward intrigues and improprieties4 ,thus ,daisy ,miller is innocent and free1 and the dark1 wicked ,italian misunderstands her freedom1 and thinks she is what a girl with such manners would be in ,europe4 ,madame de ,mauves1 a loyal wife1 is married to a ,frenchman of no morals1 and when she loves a true and good ,american1 she scorns to sin1 for the reason that she would be imitating the ,frenchman1 she would be doing what the ,frenchman expects her to do4 8,the ,american0 is a novel about a 8man from home10 who has made money1 and seeks a cultured wife among the ,french nobility1 and gradually finds that he is in a nest of murders4 ,all regulation hundred percent patriotic stuff6 ,but ,europe grew upon ,henry ,james1 and ,america faded1 and the aesthetic sensibilities became less ,puritanical and more cosmopolitan4 ,so we have 8,the ,ambassadors10 the world's great international novel4 ,something over twenty years ago ,i went with a friend on a canoeing trip in the far ,northern wilds1 and for six weeks we saw only one white man1 the keeper of a ,hudson ,bay trading post4 ,baggage had to be limited on such a trip1 and ,i took only one book4 ,evening after evening ,i would read it1 a few pages at a time1 lying in a tent by candle light4 ,so ,i had plenty of time to note every subtlety1 and before ,i got through ,i was talking ,henry ,james in my sleep4 ,now the twenty years are as a day1 and the characters and their story are as vivid as ever in my mind4 ,a young ,new ,englander1 son of a wealthy family1 has come to ,paris and settled there1 refusing to go home4 ,his family send an elderly friend as ambassador to bring back the prodigal4 ,this ambassador1 whose name is ,strether1 discovers that a crude young barbarian has been changed by his ,parisian life into a cultured and self-possessed man of the world4 ,strether is duly impressed by the change1 and attributes it to the influence of a middle-aged ,french lady1 who has been the young man's good angel4 ,he writes about the situation1 but the family is not satisfied1 and another ambassador comes1 this time the young man's elder sister1 the incarnation of the acidulous propriety of ,new ,england4 ,this sister is not in the least impressed by the ,french lady1 but on the contrary suspects the very worst between the lady and her brother4 ,strether is shocked by her crude ideas2 but then comes the climax of the drama--a scene wherein it is accidentally revealed to ,strether that the acidulous sister is right2 a part of the process whereby the charming ,french lady has civilized the young barbarian has been to take him as her lover4 ,so two civilizations meet1 and in the clash between them we see the hearts of both revealed4 ,you note that in all these stories we are dealing with well-to-do people4 ,no other kind of people exist in the world of ,henry ,james4 ,such highly complicated and subtle aesthetic sensibilities are only possible in connection with large sums of money1 freely furnished to the characters without effort on their part4 ,it is impossible to imagine any person in the 8third manner0 being so vulgar as to make1 or even to take money4 ,what they do is to spend money elegantly1 and when they meet persons who spend it inelegantly1 they turn away in dignified disdain4 ,there are only a few passages in which the novelist condescends to be aware of the existence of the lower orders1 who by their toil produce the wealth which makes the aesthetic sensibilities possible4 ,we get one such glimpse in 8,the ,princess ,casamassima02 the hero glances at the women and girls of the working classes1 and then3 8,what remedy but another deluge1 what alchemy but annihilation80 he asked himself as he went his way2 and he wondered what fate there could be1 in the great scheme of things1 for a planet overgrown with such vermin1 what redemption but to be hurled against a ball of consuming fire4 ,this cultured-class hero fails to ask himself what would happen to his cultured self if the working-class vermin were to be wiped out4 ,manifestly1 these vermin have to be allowed to go on working1 in order that elegant illuminati from ,america and ,england and ,italy and ,france may gather in the great capitals to listen to beautiful music and attend the newest art exhibitions and discuss the newest books4 ,it is necessary that hundreds of millions of peasants should drudge on the rack-rented soil of ,europe1 it is necessary that mill slaves in ,new ,england and sweat-shop slaves in ,new ,york and mine slaves in ,pennsylvania should wear out their bodies1 in order that culture ambassadors may acquire old world subtlety and understanding2 may watch the 8,european scene0 and1 by reporting it for us1 enable us1 at least in imagination1 to escape the crudity and provinciality of our home lives4 ,henry ,james wrote a biography of ,hawthorne1 who as a fellow sufferer under ,puritanism he greatly admired2 and in the course of that biography he drew a picture of the 8,american scene10 which enables us to understand why a cultured-class novelist fled from it at the age of twenty-six1 and came back for only one visit in a long lifetime4 ,read the list of our deficiencies--and do not read it hurriedly1 but stop and1 as ,henry ,james would say1 8savour0 each phrase1 realizing the mass of content it has to the aesthetically sensitive mind3 ,no sovereign1 no court1 no personal loyalty1 no aristocracy1 no church1 no clergy1 no army1 no diplomatic service1 no country gentlemen1 no palaces1 no castles1 no manors1 nor old country-houses1 nor parsonages1 nor thatched cottages1 nor ivied ruins2 no cathedrals1 no abbeys1 nor little ,norman churches2 no great ,universities nor public schools--no ,oxford1 nor ,eton1 nor ,harrow2 no literature1 no novels1 no museums1 no pictures1 no political society1 no sporting class--no ,epsom nor ,ascot6 ,,chapter ,,xcix ,,the ,,premier ,,novelist ,we have studied two great novelists of the later ,victorian age who failed of wide popularity4 ,we shall not understand that age completely unless we study one who was crowned1 not merely by the critics1 but by the mass of novel-reading ladies4 ,mrs4 ,humphry ,ward was her name1 and she takes me back to the days when ,i was a poor devil of a would-be writer1 half starving in a ,new ,york lodging-house4 ,what made success in the world of books8 ,i had to know1 or die2 and the ,new ,york 8,times0 was kind enough to publish a weekly review to give me the information4 ,every year or two there would appear a new novel by ,mrs4 ,humphry ,ward2 and always this novel would be the occasion for a grand state review1 signed by the name of some eminent pundit1 occupying pages one and two1 with a large portrait on page one4 ,so ,i knew that ,mrs4 ,humphry ,ward was modern literature1 and read each novel as part of my life training4 ,i read it with a mingling of interest and fear2 interest1 because it told me about a set of people whom ,i knew did actually exist1 and did actually govern the world in which ,i lived2 and fear1 because this set of people1 so obviously both predaceous and stupid1 were so powerfully buttressed by the prestige of snobbery1 and protected by the holy mantle of religion4 ,no novelist every worshipped ,mammon-respectability more piously or portrayed it with more patient devotion than ,mrs4 ,humphry ,ward in her later years4 ,she was brought up in the inner circle of culture2 her father was an ,oxford big-wig1 and ,matthew ,arnold was her 8,uncle ,matt40 ,everything that education could do for a young girl was done for her1 and she was writing a history of ,spain at the age of twenty4 ,incidentally1 she was dreaming a wonderful dream--that some day she might be presented at court4 ,her first novel1 8,robert ,elsmere10 dealt with the subject of religion4 ,a large section of the idling classes of ,england get their incomes by believing that ,jesus was born of a virgin and that ,jonah swallowed a whale2 and with the progress of science they were naturally finding this more and more difficult4 ,a school of ingenious ,bible-twisters arose1 to invent symbolical and literary meanings for fairy-tales1 in order that people who no longer believed could continue with good conscience to collect the salaries of belief4 ,mrs4 ,ward made her hero one of these new-style clergymen1 and somebody persuaded ,gladstone to read the novel1 and he wrote a long refutation of it1 which caused a tremendous fuss4 ,statesmen in ,england1 as a rule1 read only ,thucydides and ,homer1 while in the ,united ,states they read only the 8,saturday ,evening ,post40 ,there were a great many people who never saw a modern novel1 who hastened to read it when ,gladstone called it dangerous4 ,half a million copies were sold in our country1 and ,mrs4 ,ward's fortune was made4 ,she had begun1 you see1 as a radical2 and in her next novel1 8,the ,history of ,david ,grieve10 she glorifies a young hero who devotes himself to social reform4 ,but in a very few years success and wealth and the applause of the great changed the hue of this lady novelist's reflections4 ,she wrote 8,marcella10 a complete recantation of her unorthodoxy1 and a picture of what had gone on in her mind4 ,leaders of labor and social reformers now turn out to be dangerous demagogs2 and a beautiful heroine1 who loves one1 discovers the error of her way1 and comes back to safety as the wife of a nobleman's son4 ,from which time on ,mrs4 ,humphry ,ward was safe for aristocracy4 ,she moved to a mansion in ,grosvenor ,place1 where she had a view of the garden of ,buckingham ,palace4 ,she became an intimate of duchesses1 and a great figure in society and politics4 ,her publisher would negotiate with ,america before breakfast1 and get her seven thousand pounds advance on a new novel2 so the good lady spent the rest of her life grinding out a series of glorified pot-boilers in support of the ,tory principles of government4 ,each novel was an ,anglo-,saxon world event1 and the counters of book-stores in the fashionable shopping districts of ,america were piled to the ceiling with the new volume4 ,mrs4 ,ward's following was the ,anglomaniac mob1 people who have but one idea in life1 to imitate the ,british governing classes2 the sort of people who study those page advertisements and speculate anxiously3 8,what is ,wrong with this ,picture80 ,says ,mrs4 ,ogi3 8,i was in that mob4 ,in our town in ,mississippi there was no book-store1 but an adventurous ,jew who kept a cigar-store had the idea of getting a shelf of modern novels and renting them for ten cents a volume4 ,i was the first young lady in the town who had the courage to go into a cigar-store1 and ,i set all the other young ladies to reading ,mrs4 ,humphry ,ward40 8,what did you get out of it80 8,i never could find out4 ,it was all about ,british political life2 people were pulling and hauling and intriguing1 but ,i never could understand what their principles were1 or what they expected to do when they got elected40 8,that's the point exactly2 there are no principles1 there are only parties4 ,whichever one gets in constitutes the #8government1' and its task is to hold labor by the throat while capital picks its pockets4 ,labor produces a sovereign a day1 and capital takes it1 and gives labor four shillings wages1 and labor tips its cap and is grateful4 ,and then capital's favorite lady-novelist comes round with a market basket containing sixpence worth of food and medicine2 which is called charity1 and is the means of getting labor's vote at election time40 ,such was the private life of ,mrs4 ,humphry ,ward4 ,she was what is called 8philanthropic02 that is1 she was prominent in those society activities which help the poor by playing upon the vanity and love of display of the rich4 ,her life consisted in rushing about from one meeting to another1 shaking hands and chatting1 rushing home to dress and dine with prominent people1 and then reading about it in the next day's newspapers4 ,she was so busy with all this that she could only find half an hour a day in which to read ,greek6 ,the characters in her books are busy with the same kind of activities4 ,the leading man is a handsome young aristocrat1 whose occupation is becoming premier4 ,we never have any idea why he wants to be premier1 except that as hero that is his function4 ,the idea that the people of ,england should ask reasons for making an empty-headed noodle into their premier is one that never occurs to anyone in the novels4 ,what interests us is the efforts of the young man's friends to push him in1 and the efforts of his enemies to bar him out4 ,success or failure in all such 8political novels0 depends on one factor1 an entanglement of sex4 ,it appears that the ,english voters insist rigidly upon one requirement--that the statesman who holds them by the throat while their pockets are being picked shall be ostensibly chaste4 ,the law may be summed up by saying that he is permitted to have only one leisure-class female during his life4 ,of course1 if she dies1 he is permitted one more leisure-class female2 but for the rest1 he is required to satisfy his needs with females of lower classes4 ,political novels derive their plots from the fact that occasionally some statesman fails to conform to this law2 there is a statesman who wants two ladies1 or there are two ladies who want the statesman4 ,nature has not created man exclusively for the purpose of wearing a top-hat and a frock-coat1 and making speeches in ,parliament2 nor do all women find complete satisfaction1 like ,mrs4 ,humphry ,ward1 in political labors to keep other women from getting the vote4 ,there are women with mischief in them1 who endeavor to tempt statesmen from exclusive devotion to 8careers40 ,and the statesmen are tempted2 they commit indiscretions1 such as taking walks in the moonlight with the evil females2 and a thrill runs through all 8society10 and the tongues of the gossips wag furiously4 ,did they8 ,or did they not8 ,the friends of the statesman rally to save him2 and the enemies of the statesman sharpen their tomahawks2 and ,anglomaniacs1 watching the scene1 are thrilled as when ,blondin on the tight-rope sets out to walk across ,niagara ,falls4 8,we don't really need to worry10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi2 8a hero is always a hero1 and in all the books that ,i got from the little cigar-store in the ,mississippi town1 ,i cannot recall that one hero ever failed to become premier40 8,it would be interesting10 says ,ogi1 8to compile statistics on the question3 ,how many premiers have there been in the novels of ,mrs4 ,humphry ,ward1 and how many in the recent history of the ,british ,empire80 ,,chapter ,c ,,the ,,uncrowned ,,king ,we come now to study ,america in the second half of the nineteenth century4 ,the dominating factor in this period was the ,civil ,war1 a conflict in which the physical and moral energy of the country was exhausted4 ,there followed the inevitable reaction3 ,abraham ,lincoln was succeeded by the carpetbagger in the ,south and the tariff-boodler in the ,north4 ,the very hero who had led the nation to victory1 and had said1 8,let us have peace10 entered the ,white ,house to turn the government over to corruptionists4 ,in the two generations following the ,civil ,war ,america made enormous material and some intellectual progress1 but no moral progress discernible4 ,as ,i write this book1 our political morals are embodied in a post-campaign jest3 8,the ,republicans should have stolen the ,washington monument1 and then ,coolidge would have carried ,florida and ,south ,carolina40 ,provincial ,america in the decades following the ,civil ,war based its religion upon the dogma that it was the most perfect nation upon ,god's footstool4 ,the whisky-drinking1 tobacco-chewing1 obscenity-narrating1 ,grand ,old ,party-voting mob would tolerate no criticism1 not even that kind implied by living differently4 ,to it an artist was a freak1 whom it punished with mockery and practical jokes4 ,there were only two possible ways for him to survive2 one was to flee to ,new ,york and be lost in the crowd2 the other was to turn into a clown and join in laughing at himself1 and at everything he knew to be serious and beautiful in life4 ,this latter course was adopted by a man of truly great talent1 who might have become one of the world's satiric masters if he had not been overpowered by the spirit of ,america4 ,his tragic story has been told in a remarkable study1 8,the ,ordeal of ,mark ,twain10 by ,van ,wyck ,brooks4 ,for something like forty years ,mark ,twain lived as an uncrowned ,american king2 his friends referred to him thus--8the ,king40 ,his was a life which seemed to have come out of the ,arabian ,nights' enchantment4 ,his slightest move was good for columns in the newspapers2 when he traveled about the world he was his country's ambassador at large--his baggage traveled free under consular dispensation1 and in ,london and ,vienna the very traffic regulations were suspended4 ,when he went to ,washington to plead for copyright laws1 the two houses adjourned to hear him1 and the speaker of the ,house turned over his private office to the king of letters4 ,he made three hundred thousand dollars out of a single book1 he made a fortune out of anything he chose to write4 ,the greatest millionaires of the country were his intimate friends2 he had a happy family1 a strong constitution1 inexhaustible energy--what more could a human being ask8 ,and yet ,mark ,twain was not happy4 ,he grew less and less happy as time passed4 ,bitterness and despair began to creep into his writings2 sentences like this3 8,pity is for the living1 envy is for the dead40 ,stranger yet1 it began to be whispered that ,america's uncrowned king was a radical6 ,in times of stress some of us would go to him for help1 for a word of sympathy or backing1 and always this strange thing was noticed2 he was full of understanding1 and would agree with everything we said2 yes1 he was one of us4 ,but when we asked for a public action1 a declaration1 he was not there4 8,the ,jungle0 was published1 and he wrote me a letter4 ,it was burned in the ,helicon ,hall fire1 and ,i recall only one statement3 he had had to put the book down in the middle1 because he could not endure the anguish it caused him4 ,naturally1 ,i had my thoughts about such a remark4 ,what right has a man to refuse to endure the anguish of knowing what other human beings are suffering8 ,if these sufferings cannot be helped1 why then perhaps we may flee from them2 but think what the uncrowned king of ,america could have done1 in the way of backing a young author who had aimed at the public's heart and by accident had hit it in the stomach6 ,then came the ,gorki case4 ,the great ,russian writer came to ,america to plead for freedom for his country1 and to raise money for the cause4 ,the intriguers of the tsar set out to ruin him1 and turned the bloodhounds of the capitalist press upon him4 ,a dinner in ,gorki's honor had been planned1 and ,mark ,twain and ,william ,dean ,howells were among the sponsors4 ,the storm of scandal broke1 and these two great ones of ,american letters turned tail and fled to cover4 ,a year or two later ,mark ,twain was visiting ,bermuda1 and came to see me4 ,he had taken to wearing a conspicuous white costume1 and with his snow-white hair and mustache he was a picturesque figure4 ,he chatted about past times1 as old men like to do4 ,i saw that he was kind1 warm-hearted1 and also full of rebellion against capitalist greed and knavery2 but he was an old man1 and a sick man1 and ,i did not try to probe the mystery of his life4 ,the worm which was gnawing at his heart was not revealed1 until in the course of time his letters were given to the public4 ,now we know the amazing story--that ,mark ,twain lived a double life2 he1 the uncrowned king of ,america1 was the most repressed personality1 the most completely cowed1 shamed1 and tormented great man in the history of letters4 ,he was born in a ,missouri ,river town in #ahce4 ,his father was a futile dreamer with a perpetual motion machine4 ,his mother was a victim of patent medicines1 who had seen better days1 and reared a family of ragged brats in a foul and shabby environment1 where a boy saw four separate murders with his own eyes4 8,little ,sam0 was a shy1 sensitive child1 his mother's darling1 and she raised him in a fierce determination to have him grow up respectable and rich4 ,he became a printer1 then a pilot on the ,mississippi ,river4 ,this latter was a great career2 the river pilot was the uncrowned king of this western country4 ,he saw all the world in glorious fashion2 he was a real artist1 and at the same time carried a solemn responsibility4 ,the ,civil ,war destroyed this career1 and ,mark ,twain went out to ,nevada to become a gold miner1 promising his mother that he would never return until he had made a fortune4 ,he failed as a miner1 and was forced to live by journalism4 ,so he drifted into becoming the world's buffoon4 ,he always despised it--so much so that he put a pistol to his head4 ,but he lacked the courage to pull the trigger1 and had to go on and be a writer4 ,his 8,jumping ,frog0 story went around the world2 after which he came ,east1 and wrote 8,innocents ,abroad10 and made his three hundred thousand dollars4 ,shortly after that he exchanged the domination of his mother for that of a wife4 ,he fell in love with the daughter of a wealthy coal-dealer in ,elmira1 ,new ,york4 ,there was a terrible 8to do0 about it in respectable 8up-,state0 circles1 for ,samuel ,clemens was a wild and woolly westerner1 who didn't know how to handle a knife and fork1 while the daughter of the coal-dealer had been brought up on an income of forty thousand dollars a year4 ,however1 this strange lover was a 8lion10 so they decided to accept him and teach him parlor tricks4 ,they gave the young couple a carriage and coachman1 and a house which had cost twenty-five thousand dollars2 it wasn't long before he was completely justifying their faith1 by living at the rate of a hundred thousand a year4 ,the wife was a frail woman1 a semi-invalid1 and ,mark ,twain adored her2 also1 he was awe-stricken before her1 because of her extremely high social position4 ,she was ignorant1 provincial1 rigidly fixed in a narrow church-going respectability2 by these standards she brought him up1 and raised a couple of daughters to help him4 ,as ,clemens phrased it1 his wife 8edited0 him2 as his daughters phrased it1 they 8dusted papa off40 ,what these women did to ,america's greatest humorist makes one of the most amazing stories in the history of culture4 ,they went over everything he wrote and revised it according to the standards of the ,elmira bourgeoisie4 ,they suppressed the greater part of his most vital ideas1 and kept him from finishing his most important works4 ,when he wrote something commonplace and conventional they fell on his neck with delight1 and helped to spend the fortune which it brought in4 ,when he told the truth about ,america1 or voiced his own conclusions about life1 they forced him to burn it1 or hide it in the bottom of a trunk4 ,his one masterpiece1 8,huckleberry ,finn10 he wrote secretly at odd moments1 taking many years at the task1 and finally publishing it with anxiety4 ,mrs4 ,clemens came home from church one day1 horrified by a rumor that her husband had put some swear words into a story2 she made him produce the manuscript1 in which poor ,huck1 telling how he can't live in the respectable world1 exclaims3 8,they comb me all to hell40 ,now when you read 8,huckleberry ,finn10 you read3 8,they comb me all to thunder60 ,mark ,twain had in him the making of one of the world's great satirists4 ,he might have made over ,american civilization1 by laughing it out of its shams and pretensions4 ,but he was not permitted to express himself as an artist2 he must emulate his father-in-law1 the ,elmira coal-dealer4 ,the unhappy wretch turned his attention to business ventures1 and started a huge publishing business1 to publish his own and other books4 ,he sold three hundred thousand copies of ,general ,grant's ,memoirs1 and sold hundreds of thousands of copies of other books1 utterly worthless from the literary point of view4 ,he was always at the mercy of inventors with some new scheme to make millions4 ,for example1 there was a typesetting machine2 he sunk a huge fortune into that1 and would spend his time figuring what he was going to make--so many millions that it almost made a billion4 ,he was a wretched business man1 and failed ignominously and went into bankruptcy1 losing his wife's money as well as his own4 ,h4 ,h4 ,rogers1 master pirate of ,standard ,oil1 came forward and took charge of his affairs1 incidentally playing billiards with him until four o'clock every morning4 ,and then some young radical brought him an exposure of the ,standard ,oil ,company1 expecting him to publish this book as a public service6 ,going back to ,mark ,twain's books1 we can read these facts between the lines1 and see that he put his balked and cheated self1 or some aspect of this self1 into his characters4 ,we understand how he poured his soul into ,huck ,finn2 this poor henpecked genius1 dressed up and made to go through the paces of a literary lion1 yearns back to the days when he was a ragged urchin and was happy2 ,huck ,finn and ,tom ,sawyer represent all that daring1 that escape from the bourgeois world1 which ,sam ,clemens dreamed but never achieved4 ,he put another side of himself into ,colonel ,sellers1 who imagined fortunes2 and yet another side into ,pudd'nhead ,wilson1 the village atheist who mocked at the shams of religion4 ,secretly ,mark ,twain himself loathed ,christianity1 and wrote a letter of cordial praise to ,robert ,ingersoll2 but publicly he went to church every ,sunday1 escorting his saintly wife1 according to the customs of ,elmira6 ,the more you read this story the more appalling you find it4 ,this uncrowned king of ,america built up literally a double personality2 he took to writing two sets of letters1 one containing what he really wanted to say1 and the other what his official public self was obliged to say4 ,he accumulated a volume of 8unmailed letters10 one of the weirdest phenomena in literary history4 ,he was indignant at the ending of the ,russian-,japanese war1 because he believed that if it had continued for a couple of months more the tsar would have been overthrown4 ,when ,colonel ,george ,harvey invited him to dine with the ,russian emissaries to the ,portsmouth ,conference1 he wrote a blistering telegram1 in which he declared himself inferior as a humorist to those statesmen who had 8turned the tragedy of a tremendous war into a gay and blithesome comedy40 ,but he did not send that telegram2 he sent another1 full of such enraptured praise of the ,russian diplomats that ,count ,witte sent it to the tsar6 ,that is only one sample out of many4 ,he wrote a ,war ,prayer1 a grim satire upon the ,christian custom of praying for victory4 8,i have told the whole truth in that10 he said to a friend2 and then added the lamentable conclusion3 8,only dead men can tell the truth in this world4 ,it can be published after ,i am dead40 ,he explained the reason--this financier who had fortunes to blow in upon mechanical inventions3 8,i have a family to support1 and ,i can't afford this kind of dissipation40 ,and again3 8,the silent1 colossal ,national ,lie that is the support and confederate of all the tyrannies and shams and inequalities and unfairnesses that afflict the peoples--that is the one to throw bricks and sermons at4 ,but let us be judicious and let somebody else begin40 ,of course a man who wrote like this despised himself4 ,it was the tragedy of ,tolstoi1 but in a far more humiliating form2 ,tolstoi at least wrote what he pleased1 and did in the end break with his family4 ,but ,mark ,twain stayed in the chains of love and respectability--his bitterness boiling and steaming in him like a volcano1 and breaking out here and there with glare and sulphurous fumes4 8,the damned and mangy human race10 was one of his phrases2 and again he wrote3 8,my idea of our civilization is that it is a shabby poor thing and full of cruelties1 vanities1 arrogances1 meannesses and hypocrisies4 ,as for the word1 ,i hate the sound of it1 for it conveys a lie2 and as for the thing itself1 ,i wish it was in hell1 where it belongs40 ,in the effort to excuse himself1 this repressed personality evolved a philosophy of fatalism4 ,man was merely a machine1 and could not help doing what he did4 ,this was put into a book1 8,what is ,man80 ,but then he dared not publish the book6 8,am ,i honest80 he wrote1 to a friend4 8,i give you my word of honor 7privately7 ,i am not4 ,for seven years ,i have suppressed a book1 which my conscience tells me ,i ought to publish4 ,i hold it my duty to publish it4 ,there are other difficult tasks ,i am equal to1 but ,i am not equal to that one40 ,he did publish the book at last1 but anonymously1 and with a preface explaining that he dared not sign his name4 ,he1 ,america's greatest humorist1 had a duty laid upon him2 he saw that duty clearly--how clearly we learn from a story1 8,the ,mysterious ,stranger10 a ferocious satire upon the human race1 published after his death4 ,in this book ,satan asks3 8,will a day come when the race will detect the funniness of these juvenilities and laugh at them--and by laughing at them destroy them8 ,for your race1 in its poverty1 has unquestionably one really effective weapon--laughter4 ,power1 money1 persuasion1 supplication1 persecution--these can lift at a colossal humbug--push it a little--weaken it a little1 century by century2 but only laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast4444 ,as a race1 do you ever use it at all8 ,no2 you lack sense and the courage40 ,such was the spiritual tragedy going on in the soul of a man who was going about ,new ,york1 clad in a fancy white costume1 smiled upon and applauded by all beholders1 crowned by all critics1 wined and dined by ,standard ,oil millionaires1 dancing inexhaustibly until three or four o'clock in the morning1 and nicknamed in higher social circles 8the belle of ,new ,york40 ,mrs4 ,ogi from ,mississippi reads this onslaught upon ,mrs4 ,ogi from ,elmira2 and her husband wonders a little while he waits4 ,but she only smiles1 and remarks3 8,in our family the men have a traditional saying3 #8,it's all right to be henpecked1 but be sure you get the right hen6'0 ,,chapter ,,ci ,,smiling ,,america ,we come now to an ,american artist who played the part of his own wife2 that is to say1 ,ogi and ,mrs4 ,ogi combined in one person4 ,his name was ,william ,dean ,howells1 and he was born in #ahcg in an ,ohio town4 ,he began life as a typesetter in a newspaper office1 then he became a reporter1 and was made ,united ,states consul in ,venice at the age of twenty-four4 ,it was a job which left time for art1 and young ,howells trained himself diligently4 ,he became editor of the 8,atlantic ,monthly10 the first non-,bostonian to hold that high ecclesiastical office4 ,for years he presided at the dying bedside of ,new ,england literature1 and after the patient was buried he came to ,new ,york and found a permanent berth with 8,harper's ,magazine40 ,he wrote for sixty years1 and published over a hundred volumes of poetry1 criticism and fiction4 ,he had ease and grace and charm1 all the drawing-room literary virtues2 he displayed the same virtues in real life1 and so everybody loved him1 and he became1 according to ,mark ,twain1 8the critical ,court of ,last ,resort in this country1 from whose decisions there is no appeal40 ,the principle upon which the success of ,howells was based is revealed to us in his autobiography4 ,he tells how as a young reporter on an ,ohio newspaper1 he was sent to a police court1 and he quit4 8,if all my work could have been the reporting of sermons1 with intervals of sketching the graduating ceremonies of young ladies' seminaries0--why1 then he might have become a city editor6 ,he tells of coming upon a sordid tragedy1 and resolving that forever after he would avert his eyes from the darker side of life2 8the more smiling aspects of life are the more ,american40 ,you can see why he needed no ,mrs4 ,ogi from ,elmira1 or from any other place1 to edit his manuscripts4 ,to dignify this program of portraying the more smiling and therefore more ,american aspects of life1 ,howells gave it the name of 8realism40 ,all his life long he published critical articles in defense of this program1 and he described these articles as 8a polemic1 a battle40 ,also he wrote novels1 which he regarded as pure1 undiluted works of art4 ,it never occurred to the dear soul that the novels were merely a continuation of his 8polemic10 another phase of his 8battle40 ,not content with rebuking men who did wrong1 ,howells wished to provide examples of what was right2 therefore he invented characters and contrived situations to exhibit the virtues and charms of that middle-class gentility which was always smiling and therefore always ,american4 ,the apologia of this school of 8realism0 may be formulated as follows3 ,i am a gentleman of placid disposition and quiet feelings1 with no devastating passions tormenting me1 no cosmic idealisms driving my soul4 ,i am comfortable in the bourgeois world1 having always earned a good salary and taken care of my family4 ,i believe this is the proper thing for men to do1 and if they fail to do it it is their own fault4 ,i love to read good books1 and ,i cultivate a mild and gentle imagination4 ,i write about my sort of people1 and ,i call such books art4 ,if men persist in having violent and stormy passions and intense and overwhelming convictions2 if they persist in going to extremes1 whether base and cruel1 or heroic and sublime--then ,i am disturbed in my literary dignity1 and ,i denounce such writing1 and call it romanticism1 propaganda1 and pose4 ,and since ,i am 8the critical ,court of ,last ,resort in this country1 from whose decisions there is no appeal10 it follows that young writers who persist in displeasing me are sentenced to move into garrets and be starved and frozen into submission4 ,upon the above formula ,howells founded and maintained a school of 8local color0 in the ,united ,states4 ,men and women who had been brought up in different parts of the country wrote stories describing in detail the peculiarities of speech and costume and manners there prevailing4 ,confining themselves to the everyday and obvious events of humdrum life1 and being content to observe and not to think1 they were sure of a cordial reception from ,howells1 and of publication and payment by the great magazine and publishing house which took the great critic's advice4 ,by enforcing these standards for half a century1 ,howells and a group of editors like him put a blight upon ,american literature from which it is only now escaping4 ,i do not want to be unfair to a gracious and kindly gentleman4 ,in his later years he fell under the spell of ,tolstoi1 and took to calling himself a ,socialist4 ,he wrote a story1 8,the ,traveler from ,altruria10 a gentle and winning satire upon the stupidities of capitalism4 ,i would love him more ardently for having written that book if he had been willing to fight for it2 if he had put any trace of social protest into his magazine editing and contributing4 ,but he joined with ,mark ,twain in deserting poor ,gorki1 and he continued to hold his comfortable position and to collect his salary and royalties from ,harper and ,brothers1 after that concern went into bankruptcy and was turned into the propaganda department of ,j4 ,p4 ,morgan and ,company4 ,i have told in 8,the ,brass ,check0 the curious story of my own experience with this publishing house2 ,i will repeat it here1 so far as it bears on ,howells4 ,ten years ago ,i was collecting material for my anthology of revolutionary literature1 8,the ,cry for ,justice10 and ,i applied to one or two hundred authors for permission to quote briefly from their writings4 ,having got the authors' permission1 ,i then applied to the publishers2 whereupon ,i received from ,messrs4 ,harper and ,brothers a letter1 forbidding me to quote from any book published by them1 even with the author's permission4 ,i took the trouble to call upon the gentleman who had this matter in charge1 and was informed that the firm considered my reputation to be so bad that ,i would do injury to any author whom ,i quoted4 ,i had with me a letter from ,howells1 saying that he would be very glad to be quoted4 ,but no matter2 ,i was not to quote him2 neither was ,i to quote ,mark ,twain1 nor ,charles ,rann ,kennedy1 nor ,h4 ,g4 ,wells6 ,it happened that ,howells' editorial office was in that same dingy old ,franklin ,square building1 so ,i took the matter to him4 ,he was courteous and friendly--but he did not feel that it would be proper for him to oppose the objections of his publishers4 ,my plea1 that he owed something to a fellow-,socialist1 and still more to the movement1 did not avail4 ,and lest the reader think that ,i am unduly prejudiced against the publication department of ,j4 ,p4 ,morgan ,company1 let me quote a couple of sentences from a letter written to the editor of 8,harper's0 ,magazine by ,lafcadio ,hearn3 8,your firm is a hundred years behind2 ignorant1 brutal1 mean1 absurdly ignorant--incredibly ignorant of what art is1 what literature is1 what good taste is4 ,but it makes money like pork packeries and butcheries and loan offices40 ,history has its curious ironies1 and this would be one--if it should turn out that ,howells1 in refusing to be quoted in 8,the ,cry for ,justice10 had lost his best chance of being read in the future4 ,and lest this remark be taken for megalomania1 let me add that ,i am not the author of the anthology1 merely its editor1 and others could have done the job as well1 perhaps better4 ,the point is that this is the kind of literature which the future will read4 ,the whirlwinds of social revolution are gathering to sweep the world2 and when they have passed1 there will be a new generation of clear-eyed young workers1 who will look upon the fiction-characters of ,william ,dean ,howells with puzzled dismay4 ,characters so mild and gentle1 so tolerant in the presence of intolerable wrong6 ,characters so very respectable in the getting and spending of their incomes1 so anxious in their conformity to pecuniary conventions6 ,the young workers will not be able to imagine themselves in the place of such characters2 but will study them as one studies relics in a museum1 or queer-shaped insects under a microscope4 ,,chapter ,,cii ,,the ,,eminent ,,tankard-,,man ,through the latter part of the nineteenth century there existed in the ,united ,states a peculiar literary phenomenon1 the underground reputation of ,ambrose ,bierce4 ,the fiction reading public did not know this man2 the readers of 8yellow0 journalism knew him as a ,hearst writer1 even more brilliant and cynical than the average4 ,but now and then you would come upon an expert in the literary craft1 who would tell you that ,ambrose ,bierce was a short-story writer and satirist without equal in ,america1 the greatest genius our literature had produced4 ,you would set out to look for these obscure writings1 and could not find them in the libraries or the book-stores4 ,at last you might get someone to lend you a copy1 and then you would join the campaign of whispering4 ,now ,bierce is coming into his own4 ,the public is hearing about him4 ,he is of especial interest to us here1 because he spent his energy in attacking1 with the utmost possible fury1 the thesis of this book2 while at the same time1 both in his life and his writings1 he vindicated that thesis to the last syllable4 ,ambrose ,bierce was bom in #ahdb1 the son of a poor farmer in ,ohio4 ,at the age of nineteen he enlisted and fought through the ,civil war1 being twice wounded and brevetted major4 ,then he became a journalist1 first in ,san ,francisco1 then in ,london1 finally in ,washington and ,new ,york4 ,he was one of the most ethical men that ever lived1 a born preacher1 as vehement and persistent as ,carlyle4 ,he fought for his beliefs1 and shrank from no sacrifice in their behalf4 ,he was no man's man1 but said what he thought1 no matter how bitter and fierce it might be4 ,he paid the penalty in a host of enemies and a lifetime of struggle4 ,that such a man should have taken up with art-for-art's-sake theories is assuredly a quaint incongruity in the history of literature4 ,but so it happened4 ,he looked out upon ,america1 and saw the grafters thriving1 he saw corruption enthroned as a political system1 and he gave up the human race in despair3 8a world of fools and rogues1 blind with superstition1 tormented with envy1 consumed with vanity1 selfish1 false1 cruel1 cursed with illusions--frothing mad40 ,these phrases occur in an article1 8,to ,train a ,writer02 and you can see what sort of writer it would train6 ,a writer who renounces solidarity1 and seeks refuge in his own talent1 the one place where a man is master1 where he can make beauty1 order and dignity4 ,so let us live in the world of art1 let us consecrate ourselves to its service1 and waste no love upon 8the irreclaimable mass of brutality that we know as #8mankind4'0 ,this conviction ,bierce holds in the fashion of a religious zealot4 ,he has reached the stage of knowing that the rest of the world doubts his faith2 therefore he asserts it the more vehemently1 and flies into a rage with all who question it4 ,his letters have been published2 and in the first one1 addressed to a young girl who aspires to write1 he storms at the viciousness of those who would use the writer's craft in the service of human progress4 8,such ends are a prostitution of art40 ,and later on in the letters this champion of the art-for-art's-sake theory reveals the terror that gnaws at his soul4 8,if poets saw things as they are they would write no more poetry40 ,some twenty years ago ,jack ,london sent me the first book of a ,san ,francisco poet1 and in an inscription he described the author3 8,i have a friend1 the dearest in this world40 ,the book was 8,the ,testimony of the ,suns10 by ,george ,sterling2 and friendship being an unlimited thing1 ,i also took over a share of it4 ,for twenty years ,i have been puzzled at finding in this gracious companion and maker of exquisite verses certain qualities of bitterness and aching despair4 ,when ,i read these letters of ,ambrose ,bierce ,i discovered a plausible explanation2 for here is the young poet1 submitting his first efforts2 and here is the savage misanthropist using his power as a preacher and an elder1 in an effort to set the poet's feet in the paths of futility and waste4 ,ambrose ,bierce1 among his host of antagonisms1 had one which amounted to an insanity--his dislike of ,socialists2 and he saw both ,london and ,sterling lending their influence to the hellish cult4 ,bierce was one of those subtle opponents who say that they have a certain amount of sympathy with the ,socialist ideal1 were it not for the fact that the partisans of the cause make themselves so objectionable4 ,yes2 they would truly be willing to see mankind delivered from poverty1 crime1 prostitution and war1 were it not for creatures of the lunatic fringe1 who wear their hair long and tie their neck-ties into a bow6 ,there is something pathological about the ravings of ,bierce on this subject1 and we are not surprised to learn that in his early days a prominent ,socialist writer1 ,laurence ,gronlund1 took a girl away from him1 and thus excited his animosity4 ,we find him quarreling with one person after another who persists in dallying with ,socialist ideas1 and in the end he quarreled even with ,sterling1 and wrote him letters of harsh abuse1 which ,sterling out of kindness to his memory destroyed4 ,the published letters are full of literary criticism2 it is always consistent--and in every case exactly the opposite of what you find in this book4 ,ibsen and ,shaw are 8very small men--pets of the drawing-room and gods of the hour40 ,tolstoi is 8not an artist10 and ,burns is 8gibberish02 ,gorki is 8not only a peasant1 but an anarchist and an advocate of assassination40 ,bierce was living in ,washington1 serving the ,hearst newspapers1 when ,gorki came to ,america4 ,bierce had never met him1 and really knew nothing about him1 but he swallowed with greedy eagerness the propaganda emanating from the ,russian embassy in ,washington2 he writes to ,sterling mysterious hints from inside information3 8,it isn't merely the woman matter4 ,you'd understand if you were on this side of the country40 ,all this has become familiar to us with the passage of the years2 it is the thing known as hundred percent ,american boobery4 ,the capitalist system sets up its colossal slander-mills1 with a staff of secret agents1 forgers and safe-crackers and confidence men1 a devil's crew4 ,the people of course have no conception of this machinery for the manipulating of their minds2 and how pitiful to find a haughty intellectual as credulous as the poorest clodhopper6 ,it is one more demonstration of the fact that a modern man who does not understand revolutionary economics is a child wandering in a forest at midnight4 ,there were other factors in the making of ,bierce's irascibility4 ,he describes himself as 8an eminent tankard-man10 and he found in ,san ,francisco plenty of people willing to practice art for art's sake1 not troubling themselves or him with hopes for the human race4 ,there is a tale of a riotous crew1 resolving to put an end to ,christianity by pulling down a cross which stood upon the highway4 ,they tied themselves to the cross with ropes and pulled their hardest1 only to sink down exhausted in drunken slumber4 ,i wonder that some ,catholic poet does not take this for a piece of symbolism4 ,maybe it has been done--,i admit there are gaps in my knowledge of ,catholic poetry6 ,what had this man to give the world1 if anything8 ,the answer is3 love of truth1 and loathing of corruption and hypocrisy4 ,he wrote all those things which ,mark ,twain knew1 but suppressed4 ,he was the only one of those who fought through the war to tell the truth about it4 ,and therein lies his power and significance as an artist2 he1 the art-for-art's-saker pure and simple1 writes tales which make us hate mass-murder4 ,the formula of these tales is the one with which ,maupassant has made us familiar4 ,men aspire1 and fate knocks them down and tramples their faces into the mud4 ,when we see in the chances of battle a son shoot his own father1 we may draw the conclusion that all human life is futile1 as ,bierce wishes us to2 or we may elect to draw a different conclusion1 and join the ,league to ,outlaw ,war4 ,bierce's verses were shafts of satire aimed at the social kites and buzzards of his time4 ,they have a quality of personal ferocity seldom equalled in the world's literature4 ,there are two volumes of them1 8,black ,beetles in ,amber0 and 8,shapes of ,clay40 ,readers of 8,the ,brass ,check0 may remember a sample there quoted1 dealing with ,mike de ,young1 publisher of the ,san ,francisco 8,chronicle10 and concluding3 ,a dream of broken necks and swollen tongues-- ,a whole world's gibbets loaded with de ,youngs6 ,here1 as in so much of ,bierce's work1 his ignorance of social forces rendered him impotent4 ,he writes about individual scoundrels1 but he does not understand what makes them1 nor how to remedy them2 so his writing is useless to himself1 to his victims1 and to us4 ,once upon a time ,ambrose ,bierce went to sleep at night on a flat stone in a graveyard4 ,we are not told whether his exploits as 8an eminent tankard-man0 had anything to do with this1 but we are told that as a result he became a lifelong sufferer from rheumatism and asthma4 ,so his old age was bitter1 and he found insufficient consolation in producing literary masterpieces for a hypothetical posterity4 ,he wandered off into ,mexico and disappeared4 8,to be a gringo in ,mexico at the present time is a cheap form of euthanasia10 he told his friends4 ,so apparently it proved2 and so this book has another vindication1 provided by a leading opponent4 8,be careful10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi2 8the ,mexican bandits may not have got him after all40 8,he has already had a few whacks at me4 ,george ,sterling sent him an article of mine1 published twenty years ago1 #8,our ,bourgeois ,literature1' and he ridiculed my thesis that the qualities of ,american literature are explained by ,american social conditions3 #8,the political and economical situation has about as much to do with it as the direction of our rivers and the prevailing color of our hair4' ,also he read #8,the ,journal of ,arthur ,stirling1' and called my poor poet #8the most disagreeable character in fiction4'0 ,says ,mrs4 ,ogi3 8,he did not even trouble to get the poor poet's name right60 ,her husband answers3 8,the officers in the ,british army have a saying3 #8,what is fame8 ,to die in battle and have your name misspelled in the 8,gazette04'0 ,,chapter ,,ciii ,,the ,,soldier ,,of ,,fortune ,having considered a fiction writer whom the great public rejected1 let us now consider one whom it enthusiastically acclaimed4 ,richard ,harding ,davis was born in ,philadelphia in #ahfd4 ,his father was a famous editor1 and he was raised among cultured people1 with every advantage of prestige and social position4 ,he was handsome1 full of energy1 and all his life made hosts of friends4 ,after getting through college1 he took a job with ,arthur ,brisbane on the ,new ,york 8,evening ,sun10 where his brother tells us he underwent 8considerable privation10 his salary being only thirty dollars a week at the start1 plus his earnings from short stories4 ,during this same period the present writer was living in ,new ,york upon four and one-half a week1 and never sure of having that2 so you see that standards of 8considerable privation0 vary considerably4 ,davis's first stories dealt with a hero named ,van ,bibber1 a scion of the ,fifth ,avenue plutocracy1 handsome1 debonair1 wearing his clothes with irreproachable taste1 and devoting his abundant leisure to the reforming of ,new ,york2 ,haroun-al-,raschid brought down to date1 ,sir ,galahad in a dress-suit4 ,happy1 care-free1 he wanders1 with innocent heart and open purse1 making things right wherever he finds them wrong4 ,he has the entre behind the scenes of theatres1 but not to seduce the chorus girls--ah1 nothing like that1 but to rescue a sweet1 innocent child and carry her home to a cold1 proud1 cruel ,fifth ,avenue father who has refused to acknowledge his wild oat4 ,that done1 ,van ,bibber roams again1 and jumps on the neck of a burglar1 and kicks his pistol out of his hand1 and then gets sorry for him1 and buys him a ticket to ,montana1 where his wife and daughter wait for him to come and reform4 ,then he wanders to the ,bowery1 and sees a rowdy insulting a lady2 it is not enough for him to demonstrate the natural superiority of the plutocracy by putting this one rowdy to flight1 he must crown the demonstration by accepting a challenge from three of 8the purest specimens of the tough of the ,east ,side waterfront10 and routing them in the presence of the proud aristocratic beauty4 ,the charm of the story lies in the truly elegant insouciance with which young ,van ,bibber does all these things--the manner of a juggler keeping six billiard-balls in the air4 ,here1 you see1 is the perfect type of the ruling-class glorifier3 ,homer and the ,arabian ,nights1 ,don ,quixote and ,king ,arthur1 ,dumas1 ,ouida1 ,rudyard ,kipling and ,mrs4 ,humphry ,ward all rolled into one4 ,no wonder our grandfathers were captivated1 or that the innocent souls who edited 8,harper's0 and 8,scribner's0 extended the freedom of their columns to this inspired creator of plutocratic romance6 ,it is interesting to note that our 8,dick0 came from the most ,english place in the ,united ,states1 and looked like an ,englishman and1 perhaps as a matter of instinct1 dressed and talked like an ,englishman4 ,in his early writing days he lived for a few months at ,oxford1 and the students of ,balliol ,college took him in on equal footing1 an honor never before accorded to a non-student ,american4 ,the ,english ruling class had taken upon itself the task of colonizing and exploiting the rest of the world1 and the ,american ruling class was following suit1 and ,richard ,harding ,davis became the prophet of both4 ,throughout ,central ,america and the ,west ,indies the process is invariable3 ,american capitalists bribe the governments of these countries and get enormously valuable concessions1 then they send in engineers and other handsome young heroes clad in khaki and puttees and with automatics in their belts4 ,these heroes engage the natives of the country to exploit the natural resources and ship out the wealth of the country1 to be spent upon monkey dinners at ,newport and champagne suppers in ,broadway lobster palaces4 ,sooner or later the natives become irritated at the sight of their natural resources being exported for such purposes1 so they revolt against the native government which has sold them to the ,yankees4 ,then the handsome young ,yankee heroes draw their automatics and bring up machine guns1 and gloriously defend the native government which they have bought and paid for4 ,the ending comes triumphantly with a ,yankee gunboat in the harbor1 and some marines charging up the slope of a hill waving ,old ,glory1 while the audience leaps from its seats and cheers for five minutes4 8,soldiers of ,fortune0 was 8,dick0 ,davis's biggest success4 ,it brought him reservoirs of money1 first as a serial1 then as a novel1 then as a drama1 and finally as a movie4 ,his other novels were like it1 in that they dealt with members of the ruling class gloriously making or marrying fortunes4 ,the next was called 8,the ,princess ,aline10 and told about a young1 wealthy1 handsome and aristocratic artist--so many elements of good fortune6--who falls in love with the photograph of a ,german princess4 ,the model for this exquisite heroine was the future ,empress of ,russia2 but ,davis did not live to write a sequel1 showing the final destiny of his heroine1 her mangled body dumped into a well along with her husband and four exquisite daughters4 ,recalling these novels at the present hour1 ,i see the international plutocracy with all its exquisite wives and daughters1 crouched trembling upon the top of a mountain of gold and jewels1 while all around them the handsome young hired heroes peer out over the sights of machine guns at the massed fury of the exploited millions of mankind--white1 black1 yellow1 brown1 red1 and mixed4 ,davis became a war correspondent and spent his time racing over the earth from one scene of excitement to another4 ,i have run through the volume of his letters and jotted down a few date lines in the order they occur3 ,cuba1 ,london1 ,egypt1 ,gibraltar1 ,paris1 ,central ,america1 ,south ,america1 ,moscow1 ,budapest1 ,havana1 ,london1 ,florence1 ,greece1 ,havana1 ,cape ,town1 ,pretoria1 ,aix-les-,bains1 ,massachusetts1 ,madrid1 ,london1 ,san ,francisco1 ,tokio1 ,manchuria1 ,havana1 the ,congo1 ,new ,york1 ,london1 ,santiago1 ,vera ,cruz1 ,belgium1 ,plattsburg1 ,paris1 ,athens1 ,rome4 ,if you know the history of the world for twenty-five years beginning with #ahij you can connect each of these geographical names with a coronation1 a jubilee1 a war1 or other ruling-class recreation4 ,all through the letters runs the theme of money1 the ,aladdin's tale of a soldier of literary fortune4 ,he gets five thousand dollars for the serial rights of 8,soldiers of ,fortune0 from 8,scribner's ,magazine02 he gets five hundred dollars for reporting a foot-ball game2 he gets three thousand dollars and expenses for a month's reporting of the ,cuban struggle with ,spain1 and when ,america enters the conflict1 he gets ten cents a word from 8,scribner's ,magazine0 and four hundred dollars a week and expenses from the ,new ,york 8,times40 ,everywhere he goes he is1 of course1 a lion1 and moves only in the highest circles4 ,his letters are full of diplomats and generals and lords and ladies and kings and queens1 together with the most famous actors and literary lights4 ,he is presented at ,court--and by this1 needless to say1 ,i mean the ,court of their ,majesties the ,king and ,queen of ,great ,britain and ,ireland1 and ,emperor and ,empress of ,india4 ,and all through the letters we note dinner-parties and banquets and champagne-suppers and cocktails--interrupted by a siege with sciatica1 preparing us for the quick curtain1 when our ruling-class hero departs his successful life at the age of fifty-two4 ,new ,york is a place of mean and envious gossip1 and one of its diversions was telling anecdotes illustrating the snobbery and self-importance of ,richard ,harding ,davis4 ,it appears that in the days of his extraordinary prosperity he did not always recognize his former newspaper cronies when he met them on the street4 ,perhaps he had noted that so many of these former cronies took the occasion to borrow money from him4 ,anyhow1 ,i have one anecdote to contribute to the collection4 ,it was early in #aiad1 a period of great depression in my own life and fortunes4 ,davis1 of course1 never had any depressions2 he had just come back from ,cuba1 where he had turned 8,soldiers of ,fortune0 into a moving picture film1 and it was now being launched on ,broadway with enormous clat4 ,i happened to know the manager1 and was invited to the opening performance1 where in the lobby ,i was introduced to the great author and lion of the occasion4 ,when he heard my name his face lighted up1 and he gave me a warm hand-clasp1 exclaiming1 8,ah1 now6 ,you write books because you really have something to say1 while ,i write only to make money60 ,it was so different from what ,i expected that ,i was completely taken aback1 and could only make a deprecating murmur4 8,it is true10 he said2 8,i know it1 and so do you40 ,the reader may say that in telling this story ,i do more credit to ,davis than to myself4 ,but that is not my concern4 ,what ,i have to do here is to report the statement of ,america's leading soldier of literary fortune concerning his own work and its reason for being4 ,,chapter ,,civ ,,the ,,bowery ,,boy ,we come now to another one of those unhappy tales of young rebellious geniuses who cannot or will not fit themselves into the bourgeois world4 ,this time it is ,stephen ,crane1 who was the fourteenth child of a ,methodist preacher and an evangelist mother1 and was born in ,newark1 ,new ,jersey2 which goes to prove that a genius may spring up anywhere in the world4 ,there is an old saying that a preacher's son always turns out to be a rake4 ,i don't suppose that statistically this statement could be justified1 but psychologically we should expect such cases2 for other children get religion once a week1 but the children of clergymen get it all the time4 ,the tragedy of poor 8,stevie0 ,crane reveals to us the folly of attaching fundamental moral principles to incredible fairy tales4 ,when the child grows up and finds that he no longer believes the tales1 he is apt to conclude that the moral principles are equally false and superfluous4 ,little 8,stevie0 was a frail and sensitive child4 ,his father died when he was young1 and then his evangelist mother died1 and he was left to grope his way alone4 ,we find him turning up at a military academy with a reputation as a baseball player1 also with six pipes--which was six too many for a lad who was to die from tuberculosis at the age of twenty-nine4 ,he picked up a living doing odd newspaper jobs1 and then he went to ,syracuse ,university4 ,most singular1 prank of history1 that ,james ,roscoe ,day1 ,d4,d41 ,sc4,d41 ,,ll4,d41 ,d4,c4,l41 ,l4,h4,d41 ,chancellor of the ,university of ,heaven 7see 8,the ,goose-,step071 should have had in charge the intellectual and moral training of the author of 8,maggie3 ,a ,girl of the ,street06 ,this boy had pathetic courage1 and absolutely original opinions1 even from the beginning4 ,his young verdict was that ,tennyson was 8swill0 and ,oscar ,wilde 8a mildewed chump40 ,that1 of course1 was merely calling names2 but in addition he had the oddest and most charming gift of humor4 ,of his mother he said1 8,you could argue as well with a wave40 ,having got through with college at the age of twenty1 he went to ,new ,york to live in a garret and starve for the sake of his independence4 ,he chose the ,bowery for his school of art2 these being the old days of the wicked street1 before the respectable1 hard-working ,jews took possession2 the days when all ,new ,york gloried in its 8toughness10 and when now and again in the filthy old alleys they raked out a human corpse from a pile of ill-smelling rubbish4 ,here the boy wrote his first novel1 8,maggie10 dealing with a girl whose drunken parents beat her and drove her on to the streets4 ,it was an entirely new note in ,american literature1 because it told the truth about these things quite simply and as a matter of course1 without apology or sentimentality4 ,the young author took it to ,richard ,watson ,gilder1 editor of the 8,century ,magazine10 and went back1 hungry and shivering with cold1 to get the verdict4 ,the 8,century0 was one of the four great magazines which determined the destiny of ,american authors2 its policy was guided by the fact that it had 8half the expectant mothers in ,america0 on its subscription list4 ,gilder said that he could not publish 8,maggie02 and after he had made long-winded explanations1 ,stephen boiled them down to one sentence1 as was his custom4 8,you mean that the story is too honest80 ,and ,gilder was honest enough to answer that he did4 ,reading about this garret existence sends shivers over my skin2 because it was only ten years later that ,i was to live the same life1 and have the same experiences in the same editorial offices4 ,i also took manuscripts to ,gilder and was turned down4 ,the same publisher who accepted 8,the ,red ,badge of ,courage10 and made a fortune out of it1 accepted also 8,the ,journal of ,arthur ,stirling10 and tricked me into signing a contract out of which ,i never got a cent4 ,all his life ,stephen ,crane had heard the war stories of old soldiers--not what you read in the official history books1 but the real things that men had felt and done4 ,he decided upon this theme1 and read up his 8local color10 and in ten quivering nights he produced 8,the ,red ,badge of ,courage40 ,at last he had a success2 a newspaper syndicate paid him a hundred dollars for the serial rights6 ,he waited a year or two longer1 and then it came out in book form4 ,it sold fairly well1 until suddenly the ,english critics went wild over it1 and then ,new ,york knew that it had a man of genius4 ,the realists had been ruling the literary roost1 insisting that you must portray life by describing its external details4 ,but this boy had a new idea2 the interesting thing to him was the way people felt1 and details merely served to reveal the human spirit4 ,he was not afraid to describe emotions as having colors4 ,so here was a new kind of fiction1 called 8impressionism02 and the realists were laid on the shelf for a while4 8,stevie0 made a small fortune1 and no longer drank his drinks in the saloons of the ,bowery1 but in the high-priced cafs on ,broadway4 ,he wrote short stories and sketches1 and verses without rhyme or rhythm1 which puzzled the critics--,i remember that in my student days they were the joke of the newspaper paragraphers4 ,the gossips got busy with him1 of course1 and a legend was built up concerning the extent of his revolt against social conventions4 ,his biographer1 ,thomas ,beer1 defends him vigorously against these tales4 ,it seems clear that he did not take drugs2 while1 as to his drinking1 we can only repeat what we said about the pipes--any drinking at all was too much for a man who was to die of tuberculosis in a few years4 ,as to the women stories1 they seem to have been partly blackmail1 and partly the young writer's imprudent notions of chivalry4 ,he was talking with a girl of the streets in a saloon1 and a policeman arrested the girl1 and ,crane came into court to testify in her behalf1 and so of course got himself in for a lot of disagreeable publicity4 ,it would have been so easy for him to avoid that1 by having the ordinary caution of a man of the world4 ,if only he had been willing to learn from ,mark ,twain and ,william ,dean ,howells how to dodge the shadow of a scandal6 ,the life of this wayward child of genius is one more illustration of that disagreeable alternative which life so often presents us4 ,you may have self-restraint1 plus more or less hypocrisy1 and live long and successfully2 or you may have do-as-you-please1 plus absolute honesty1 and undermine your constitution and die at the age of twenty-nine4 ,the mind of ,stephen ,crane was like an acid which dissolved the shams and pretenses of civilization4 ,but he has nothing to put in the place of these things4 ,in 8,the ,red ,badge of ,courage0 he shows us a hero blind with fear2 and the theme of all his short stories and later novels is that life is a matter of accident1 and the universe a thing without moral sense or meaning4 ,this belief ,crane put also into his conduct2 he knew nothing to do with his life1 except that he had a childish wish to see a real war with his own eyes4 ,first he tried to get to ,cuba1 and was shipwrecked2 and while he got a good story out of that1 8,the ,open ,boat10 he paid with a part of his very small store of vitality4 ,then he went to ,greece1 but the cooking made him ill4 ,finally he saw our war in ,cuba1 and displayed such indifference to his own fate that the tongues of the gossips wagged faster than ever4 ,he must be seeking death1 because of some dark scandal hanging over his head6 ,he was altogether out of step with the #ahij's2 but now a new generation has come1 and all our young intellectuals are cold and objective and cynical1 agreeing that pity is a mistake and life nothing in particular4 ,they leave to me the unpleasant task of holding uninvited post-mortems over the ardent unhappy dead4 ,let me put it briefly3 that some day there will be yet another generation1 which will realize that no man can get along without a religion1 least of all the creative artist4 ,it will not be the ,methodist religion1 but it will be something that gives young geniuses a reason for taking care of themselves and their gifts4 ,there was one religion which ,stephen ,crane adopted for a period of two weeks4 ,he was a ,socialist for that long--so he explains in a letter2 but he met two other ,socialists1 who told him his doctrines were wrong1 and then fell to quarreling as to which of the two was right4 ,i say3 ,oh1 young ,stephen ,cranes of the future1 judge truth by the tests of truth1 and not by our personal frailties and follies6 ,,chapter ,,cv ,,the ,,california ,,octopus ,the mind of ,america at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century was controlled by elderly maiden aunts and hired men of privilege2 and it seemed that behind the scenes of our national life some evil jinx was operating to keep us in this double thrall4 ,there arose five independent and original-minded artists1 and here is what happened to them3 ,stephen ,crane died of tuberculosis at the age of twenty-nine1 ,frank ,norris died of appendicitis at the age of thirty-two1 ,david ,graham ,phillips was killed by a lunatic at the age of forty-four1 ,o4 ,henry died of alcoholism at the age of forty-eight1 and ,jack ,london killed himself at the age of forty4 ,frank ,norris was born in ,california in #ahgj1 the son of well-to-do parents4 ,all through his childhood and boyhood he liked to tell stories and make sketches2 he wasn't sure which he liked to do best4 ,he studied art in ,paris for a couple of years1 and published a long narrative poem at the age of twenty4 ,then he came home and tried to learn something about writing at the ,university of ,california1 but without success4 ,he took a graduate course at ,harvard1 and here he wrote 8,mc,teague10 his first successful novel4 ,he had been absorbing ,zola1 and set out to apply the ,zola method to ,america4 ,he is going to give you the brutal reality of life1 he is going to write about big animal men with heavy muscles and prominent jaws1 and broad-bosomed women with large quantities of alluring hair4 ,he is going to give you the great open spaces1 and also the sordidness and smells of cities--as much as ,america can be got to stand4 ,the theme of 8,mc,teague0 is avarice1 and we see a dentist's office with a big gold tooth for a sign1 and all through the tragic story we run upon the motif of gold in everything from sunsets to decorations4 ,then came 8,the ,octopus10 and here we are in outdoor ,california1 dealing with crude people and nature on a large scale4 8,the ,octopus0 has two themes4 ,it is the ,epic of the ,wheat1 and we see the great unfenced plains upon which wheat is raised wholesale1 and the golden flood of grain on its way to feed the millions in the cities1 a torrent of food so vast and heavy that it symbolically suffocates a man on its way4 ,and then there is the railroad1 the ,octopus which has seized the wheat country and is devouring the settlers4 ,i read this novel before ,i read anything of ,zola's1 and so ,i got the shock of a great discovery4 ,i was one of many youngsters who were set on fire4 ,here was power1 here was a new grasp of reality2 this was the way to write novels6 ,also ,i was horrified and bewildered3 could it be that things like this happened in ,america8 ,could it be that railroads set themselves up as the ruling power in a community1 that they defeated the laws1 deprived people of their homes and drove them into exile or outlawry8 ,you see1 ,i was the naive and innocent product of ,american public schools and of ,mr4 ,j4 ,p4 ,morgan's university2 ,i really thought that ,i lived in a democracy1 and under the protection of a ,constitution4 ,at that very time ,i was raising campaign funds and helping to elect the president of our university--mine and ,mr4 ,morgan's--as a 8reform0 mayor of ,new ,york ,city6 ,i tried to find out about this railroad ,octopus1 and there was no way to find out4 ,it was a dark secret of ,american life1 crushed completely underground4 ,there was no literature about it1 nothing in the newspapers or the magazines1 no books or pamphlets in the library of the great university4 ,now1 twenty-three years later1 ,i can tell you of a book in which you may read the life-story of one of these men of the ,san ,joaquin1 who were driven to outlawry by the ,southern ,pacific ,railroad4 ,the name of the man is ,ed ,morrell1 and ,jack ,london made him the hero of a novel1 8,the ,star ,rover40 ,they caught him finally and put him in prison1 and that is the story he tells in his book1 8,the ,twenty-fifth ,man10 one of the most appalling narratives ever penned by a human being4 ,frank ,norris1 who taught me something new about my country1 had set out deliberately to do that very thing4 ,he explained his ideas in a book1 8,the ,responsibilities of the ,novelist02 and ,i might1 if ,i wanted to take the time1 play a trick upon you1 by quoting sentences from his book1 mixed in with sentences from my book1 and you could not tell the difference4 ,for example1 who is it that says3 8,no art that is not in the end understood by the ,people can live or ever did live a single generation08 ,who says3 8,it is the complaint of the coward1 this cry against the novel with a purpose08 ,who says3 8,the muse is a teacher1 not a trickster08 ,who says3 8,truth in fiction is just as real and just as important as truth anywhere else08 ,it is ,frank ,norris who says all these things4 ,he goes on to point out that the pulpit reaches us only on ,sundays1 and the newspaper is quickly forgotten1 but the novel stays with us all the time4 ,and yet1 facing this responsibility1 there are novelists who admit that they write for money1 and 8you and ,i and the rest of us do not consider this disreputable60 ,norris goes on to voice his own attitude toward his work3 8,i never truckled2 ,i never took off the hat to ,fashion and held it out for pennies4 ,by ,god1 ,i told them the truth4 ,they liked it or they didn't like it4 ,what had that to do with me8 ,i told them the truth40 ,he qualifies his doctrine by the statement that the novelist must not let his purpose run away with his story4 ,i have an idea he must have let publishers and critics persuade him he had done that in 8,the ,octopus02 for in 8,the ,pit10 the second volume of his proposed trilogy1 he is more tame and conventional4 ,he tries to interest us in a grain broker and his wife as human beings--and he cannot do that1 because parasites are not and cannot be interesting1 except in satire after the fashion of 8,babbitt40 ,we miss the epic sweep and bigness of 8,the ,octopus10 and we are not consoled by the fact that 8,the ,pit0 had twice the sale4 ,the relationship between the novelist's purpose and his story is very simple2 the two things are one1 and of equal importance1 and the novelist must have them both in hand at every moment of his work4 ,the consequence of losing either is equally fatal4 ,the novelist who loses his grip upon the story and the characters who are living the story1 begins at once to write a tract or a sermon--,i know all about that1 having done it4 ,but equally fatal it is to lose your grip upon your purpose2 for then you are doing meaningless reporting1 and becoming a camera instead of a creative intellect4 ,i am prepared to hear it said many times that the author of this book does not know the difference between a tract or sermon and a work of art4 ,but those who read the book1 not to get material for ridicule1 but to learn the truth about art1 will note that ,i have praised in this book only the artists who were big enough and strong enough to keep both their imaginative impulse and their intellectual control2 ,i have failed to mention a goodly company of artists who fought valiantly for freedom and justice1 but who do not belong among the greatest1 for precisely the reason that their impulse to teach and to preach ran away with their inspiration4 ,that is why you miss such names as ,plato and ,sir ,thomas ,more and ,ferdinand ,lassalle and ,bertha von ,suttner and ,john ,ruskin and ,walter ,besant and ,charles ,kingsley and ,charles ,reade and ,robert ,buchanan and ,john ,davidson and ,richard ,whiteing and ,francis ,adams and ,harriet ,beecher ,stowe and ,edward ,bellamy4 ,,chapter ,,cvi ,,the ,,old-,,fashioned ,,american ,david ,graham ,phillips affords an interesting illustration of the power of bourgeois criticism to suppress and abolish those writers who threaten its ideology4 ,he was by all odds the greatest novelist of the period in which he wrote1 a sturdy and vigorous personality1 who looked at the world about him with his own eyes and really had something to say4 ,he was worth a dozen of the imitation novelists who were acclaimed as great during the first ten years of the century4 ,but ,phillips was a 8muck-rake man10 a prophet and a satirist2 therefore the critics patronized him1 and since his death they have forgotten him4 ,no biography has been published1 and a new generation will have to make the discovery that he wrote the biggest piece of ,american fiction of his time4 ,phillips was eleven years older than myself1 but we arrived upon the literary scene together1 and ,i used to meet him now and then in ,new ,york4 ,i have an idea that ,i annoyed him2 he was generous in praising my books1 but that did not satisfy me--,i wanted to make a ,socialist out of him1 and he would not have it6 ,he was the genuine old-fashioned ,american1 the wearer of square-toed shoes and a string tie4 ,i do not mean that ,i ever saw him in that costume1 but that his view of human society was derived from that period4 ,he came from the ,middle ,west1 and believed in the simple1 small-town democracy he had there known4 ,a man of common sense1 he hated all forms of social pretense and finickyness4 ,like a good ,american1 he respected money and the power of money1 but he wanted the people who had this power to behave like sensible human beings1 and he was infuriated because they took to putting on 8side10 getting ,english butlers and five footmen in livery4 ,he blamed this especially on the women4 ,he loathed the modern parasitic female1 to the extent of some twenty volumes1 exposing every aspect of her foolishness and empty-headedness4 ,she it was who dragged men to ruin1 she caused the corruption of government and a general riot of greed1 in order that she might have silk stockings and jewels and servants4 ,she had spurned the jobs of cooking and sewing and making home1 without ever having taken the trouble to learn to do these efficiently4 ,now she couldn't do even her foolish society job2 she couldn't run a rich man's household and be an intelligent companion1 she couldn't bear healthy children1 or raise them to be anything but shirkers4 ,proper people were shocked by ,phillips because he talked so plainly1 and fastidious people considered him coarse4 ,as a matter of fact1 he was a man of tender heart and true refinement1 who put on an aspect of rough common sense as a matter of principle4 ,cut out all this nonsense1 he seems to say to his readers2 you know we all want money1 we all like comfort1 we are all selfish creatures2 you women especially are making silly pretenses1 you know you have to be kept1 and you prefer a man who is self-willed and masterful1 a fighting man4 ,so he recorded 8,the ,fashionable ,adventures of ,joshua ,craig10 and irritated many fine ladies4 ,so in 8,old ,wives for ,new0 he preaches the common sense idea1 that if a woman is lazy and sluttish and refuses to work at her job as wife1 her husband is justified in getting rid of her and marrying a young and attractive woman4 ,in 8,the ,hungry ,heart0 he deals with the eternal triangle1 and shows a husband forgiving an erring wife--which you would think was good ,christian doctrine1 but which is contrary to fancy notions of sexual implacability4 ,in 8,the ,husband's ,story0 he portrays a wife who marries a man because she believes he will succeed2 she helps him to succeed1 and they rise high1 but finding that the higher they get1 the less interest there is in life4 ,phillips was not content with preaching in his novels2 he wrote a book1 a general scolding at 8,the ,age of ,gilt40 ,here you see the old-fashioned gentleman from ,indiana1 an individualist1 but a hater of monopoly and privilege1 a modern ,isaiah denouncing graft and greed4 ,the 8,cosmopolitan ,magazine0 lured him into writing a series of articles about the gang which was selling out our government2 8,the ,treason of the ,senate10 the articles were called1 and they made an enormous uproar4 ,theodore ,roosevelt made a speech denouncing 8muck-rake men10 which was very plainly aimed at ,phillips4 ,afterwards1 in his character as ,mr4 ,facing-,bothways1 ,roosevelt made an attempt to get information from ,phillips1 for use in his fight against the ,senate4 ,let me testify that only a few weeks before ,roosevelt made this 8muck-rake0 speech1 ,i sat at his dinner-table in the ,white ,house and heard him call the roll of these very same senators1 naming them according to the interests they served--the senator from the ,steel ,trust1 the senator from the ,copper ,trust1 and so on4 ,i recall the description of ,hale of ,maine1 the senator from the ,shipping ,trust3 8the most innately and essentially malevolent scoundrel that ,god ,almighty ever put on earth60 ,the entire writing life of ,phillips was barely ten years1 and in that period he worked incessantly1 rewriting and revising with painful conscientiousness4 ,his stories were successful as serials1 and ,i remember once teasing him because they were always of the right length for the purpose2 ,i wished that mine would behave in that convenient way4 ,the jest apparently troubled him1 for he referred to it on several occasions4 ,he did not tell me that for ten years he had been working in secret upon a novel of three hundred thousand words6 ,he left that when he died1 and it waited five years for a magazine to get up the courage to print extracts from it4 ,we have it now in two volumes1 8,susan ,lenox3 ,her ,fall and ,rise40 ,its heroine is a girl who bears the brand of illegitimacy1 and runs away from home to escape it2 but they bring her back and marry her off to an elderly farmer1 and the picture of her bridal night is one of the unforgettable scenes of ,american fiction4 ,susan is ignorant of the world1 a flower in the mud4 ,groping for light1 she escapes again1 and tries to earn her living in a box factory1 and undergoes all the horrors of tenement life4 ,starved out1 she takes to the streets in ,cincinnati1 and we see the graft and cruelty of city government4 ,she is taken up as the mistress of a politician and travels with him in ,europe4 ,but always she is reaching toward something better2 her spirit remains untarnished1 and in the end she becomes a successful actress4 ,this story1 of course1 shocked the orthodox and respectable4 ,it was a new kind of romanticism1 familiar enough to ,europe1 but not to us4 ,could a woman's soul remain pure while her body was sullied8 ,the critics denied it2 but1 as it happens1 several women of that sort have made their appearance since ,phillips wrote--for example1 the author of 8,madeleine10 who had equally degrading experiences to tell1 and yet kept her soul1 and is working to help the downtrodden part of her sex4 ,nothing offends bourgeois respectables more than the statement that women are driven to prostitution by economic forces4 ,they like to believe that the women of the poor are naturally depraved2 also1 they don't want working girls made discontented with their lot1 and they don't want social reformers poking their noses into box factories and department-stores4 ,so they call 8,susan ,lenox0 an immoral book1 and it is taboo in libraries and reviews4 ,but as a matter of fact1 ,david ,graham ,phillips shows himself in this book a thoroughly bourgeois person1 safely and wholesomely 8,american0 in his whole-hearted acceptance of the doctrine that a woman cannot and ought not try to live without comfort4 ,susan's experience in the box factory is brief2 she suffers1 both in mind and body1 but not so deeply that she cannot bear to leave the working class1 and rise above it1 and win fame and fortune by entertaining the master class1 in that kind of prostitution known as the capitalist theatre4 ,it does not occur to her to conceive a passionate ideal of sisterhood with all the oppressed factory workers2 to hang on to her job with them1 and teach and organize them1 and lead them in a strike for better working conditions and higher wages4 ,that1 you see1 is another method by which a heroine could develop a beautiful soul2 another path by which she could break into the world of intellect and power--the way of class-consciousness and solidarity4 ,but ,david ,graham ,phillips did not understand the revolutionary psychology1 and could not have imparted it to his heroine2 he was bound by the limitations of a small-town man from ,indiana1 a graduate of ,princeton ,university1 a city editor of capitalist newspapers4 ,i read the scant records of his life1 and find a leading critic praising him because he had 8no panaceas02 meaning that the critic liked him because his thinking was as muddled as the critic's4 ,the old-fashioned ,american has preached us a tremendous and moving sermon1 putting his whole heart into it2 and it would be pleasant to be able to express for it the same unquestioning reverence as ,mr4 ,robert ,w4 ,chambers1 who writes the introduction to the book4 ,but truth requires me to point out that ,phillips avoids having his heroine contract venereal disease--something which might decidedly have affected the beauty of her soul4 ,also1 she manages to preserve her beauty1 in spite of the part which getting men drunk plays in the life of a street-walker4 ,in other words1 he idealizes prostitution as a career for women1 in order to give it the advantage over the box factory4 ,it is very significant that he fails to take us into this factory and show us the work2 all we get is ,susan's interviews with the boss in his office4 ,we do not meet the other women1 except the one with whom ,susan starves in her tenement room4 ,so we fail to realize that ,susan's solution of her problem is not the solution for all women4 ,there have to be boxes1 as well as sex gratification1 in the capitalist world2 and thousands of women must hold their box-making jobs4 ,they lose their hair and teeth1 sometimes their fingers1 and always their beauty2 but they acquire class-consciousness2 and here and there a genius among them1 by incredible heroic labors1 gets a bit of knowledge and becomes a leader4 ,so1 out of the whole mass-misery results organization1 and that labor movement which is the germ of the new society1 taking form1 according to the wondrous process of nature1 inside the shell of the old4 ,but of all this we get no hint in 8,susan ,lenox02 a middle-class story1 written by a middle-class man about a middle-class girl who descends for a short period into the inferno of working-class life1 and then magically rises out of it again4 ,if ,david ,graham ,phillips had written the story of a working-class girl1 who stayed with the working class and learned working-class lessons--why then all critics would have indicted him for the crime of having a 8panacea10 and 8,susan ,lenox0 would have waited1 not five years1 but fifty years1 for publication in a popular magazine6 ,,chapter ,,cvii ,,bagdad-,,on-,,the-,,subway ,the short story writer who signed the pen name ,o4 ,henry burst like a meteor upon the magazine world of ,new ,york4 ,his first stories appeared in #aijb1 when he had only eight years of life before him4 ,in that time he became the recognized king of the craft2 everybody read him1 high and low1 those skilled in writing as well as the plain people with whose fates he dealt4 ,he poured out his stories at the rate of one or two every week1 and if he did not get the highest prices ever heard of1 it was because he cared nothing about money and did not trouble to claim his own4 ,he was a strange1 reserved man1 deeply loved by his few friends1 but hard to get at1 and resentful of the intrusion of lion hunters4 ,he had the tenderness and sentimentality of the ,southern gentleman1 combined with a secretiveness which puzzled the denizens of his ,bagdad-on-the-,subway4 ,only a few facts about his life were known2 that he had lived on a ranch in ,texas1 had been a drugstore clerk1 had written for papers in ,new ,orleans1 had traveled in ,central ,america1 and was a widower and had a young daughter--that was all his best friends knew4 ,there was a gap in his life1 and no one ventured to question him4 ,but several years after his death a biography was published1 and the disclosure was made that ,america's short story king had served three years and three months as a federal prisoner in the ,ohio penitentiary4 ,that was where he had begun his career as a story writer2 that was where he had got his intimate knowledge of gentle grafters and chivalrous highwaymen2 that was where he had acquired the pathos and the heart-break4 ,it was characteristic of ,america that there should have been a great fuss over this disclosure4 ,there was the daughter1 and also a new wife1 and these thought that the dreadful secret so long hidden should have stayed hidden4 ,likewise some editors and reviewers thought it4 ,here was a man who was assumed to belong to the ages1 and here was a story more moving and more instructive than any volume ,o4 ,henry had published2 but they wanted to bury it in his grave--because1 forsooth1 ,america is the land of respectability1 and the deepest tragedies of the human soul are of no consequence compared with the desire of two ladies to escape humiliation in a matter for which neither was in any way to be blamed4 ,it appears that ,o4 ,henry was a teller of a bank in ,texas1 the affairs of which were very loosely handled4 ,something over a thousand dollars was missing2 somebody else got it1 and ,o4 ,henry got the trouble4 ,he was on his way to stand trial1 when he fell into a panic2 he could not face the ordeal1 and ran away to ,honduras4 ,but then1 learning that his wife was dying of tuberculosis1 he could not stand that either1 and came home4 ,his wife died1 and he went through his trial in a daze of shame1 and went to prison1 to witness that infinity of horrors which ,america heaps upon those who have threatened its property interests4 ,while in ,honduras 8,bill0 ,porter--that was his real name--had made a strange acquaintance1 ,al ,jennings1 a train-bandit much wanted by ,wells-,fargo detectives4 ,the two men came back to ,america and fate brought them to the same penitentiary4 ,jennings has since reformed1 and has given us the story of himself and his literary friend in a book called 8,through the ,shadows with ,o4 ,henry40 ,so we are privileged to see the raw material out of which the stories were made1 and to watch the maker at his work4 ,he had become the drug clerk of the prison1 and in his spare hours he wrote incessantly1 in order to forget the human anguish about him4 ,he would take the outlaw stories of ,jennings1 the stories of all varieties of offenders in the prison1 and transform them to his own uses4 ,outside was his little daughter1 carefully kept in ignorance as to her father's whereabouts2 he must have money to send her a ,christmas present1 and so he ground out manuscripts and mailed them to magazines4 ,and so once more1 as in the case of ,mark ,twain1 we see the spirit of bourgeois ,america1 embodied in the personality of a woman1 engaged in remodeling the soul of a genius4 ,here was a mass of material1 palpitating with life1 and ready to be shaped into one of the great tragic records of the ages4 ,and here was a loving and tender-hearted1 humorous and blundering ,southern gentleman1 with no grasp of social forces and no understanding of what had happened to him1 engaged in sentimentalizing and feminizing that mass of material4 ,take one example1 the story of 8,jimmy ,valentine10 the most popular character ,o4 ,henry created4 ,this story was made into a play1 which had enormous success both in ,america and ,england2 it was stolen and dramatized several times in ,france and ,spain2 it was the source of a new stage variety1 what is known as the 8crook play40 ,the story tells about a little child who is locked by accident in a bank vault1 and will be suffocated in a few hours4 ,a famous safe-cracker learns of her plight and opens the safe1 and thereby reveals himself to a detective who has been hunting him4 ,but the detective1 being a magazine detective1 is kind-hearted and easily moved to tears2 he foregoes the glory and reward of capturing a famous crook1 and the crook retires to be good and happy ever afterwards in the company of the little child4 ,such is the underworld according to ,american magazine mythology4 ,and now1 what was the true story of 8,jimmy ,valentine08 ,there was a great scandal in the state of ,ohio2 some high-class crooks1 of the kind who never go to the penitentiary1 had stolen millions of dollars1 and locked all the papers in a vault and escaped4 ,these papers must be had1 and it was not possible to blow open the vault with dynamite1 for fear of destroying them4 ,so the governor applied to the penitentiary for a competent safe-cracking artist4 ,a man came forward4 ,he had been a gutter-rat1 starving in childhood1 like ,al ,jennings1 who tells his story4 ,at the age of eleven1 a 8ravenous little rag-picker10 he had broken into a box-car and stolen ten cents worth of crackers1 and had been sent to a 8reformatory10 and turned out a master-crook1 at eighteen4 ,a year later they had sent him to the penitentiary for life--an 8habitual criminal40 ,now he was dying of tuberculosis1 and his old mother was dying of grief1 because she had not been permitted to see her son1 or even to hear from him for sixteen years4 ,this man had a method of opening safes1 which consisted of filing his finger-nails off1 so that with the quivering raw flesh he could feel the dropping of the 8tumblers10 as he turned the dial of the lock4 ,he was promised his liberty if he would open the vault for the great state of ,ohio4 ,he did it in ten seconds2 and then the promise was broken1 and he went back to die in prison4 ,when his coffin was carted out1 there was his old heart-broken mother in the slush and snow1 toddling along with streaming eyes and stretched-out hands behind the cart4 ,that was a real story1 you see2 and ,o4 ,henry was in the prison when it happened1 he felt the thrill of horror and fury that ran through the place when the pardon was denied4 ,but1 you see1 if he had written that story1 he would not have had any ,christmas gifts to send to his little daughter1 nor would he have been invited to ,bagdad-on-the-,subway to be crowned the short story king4 ,so unwilling was he to face reality that he did not even use the detail about ,jimmy ,valentine's filing off his finger-nails4 ,no1 the crook in his story has to open the safe with a special fancy set of tools6 ,you see1 ,o4 ,henry simply could not face the pain of life2 he did not know what to do about it1 and so he dodged it--just like the magazine writers and the magazine public of his period4 ,he could not even face his own disgrace2 his heart was dead in that prison1 even the thought of freedom was a terror1 because of the awful secret he would carry4 ,jennings quotes him3 8,the prison label is worse than the brand of ,cain4 ,if the world once sees it1 you are doomed4 ,it shall not see it on me4 ,i will not become an outcast40 ,understand1 he knew himself to be innocent2 and yet he took the position of an ex-convict1 crouching and trembling4 ,there were other men who went to prison1 for example1 #8,gene ,debs1 who also knew himself to be innocent2 he came out a warrior and a saint4 ,but ,o4 ,henry accepted the social system as permanent1 identical with destiny4 ,he was often compared to ,maupassant1 and that hurt his feelings1 for he said that he had never written a filthy line in his life1 and he did not wish to be compared to a filthy writer4 ,you see here the limitations of his understanding2 morality means sex1 and he is revolted by ,gallic brutality1 and practices sentimental ,southern reticence4 ,but in a more fundamental way his point of view is identical with that of ,maupassant2 for to both writers class greed has taken the place of ,god in control of the universe4 ,the ,french writer jeers and hates1 while the ,american smiles and weeps2 but each finds the point of his story in the incongruities and absurdities which this artificial economic fate inflicts upon its helpless and uncomprehending victims4 ,strike through the pathos and the tragedy of ,o4 ,henry at any point1 and what do you find8 ,everywhere and inevitably one thing1 the ,big ,business system of ,america4 ,here is a waitress in a restaurant with white porcelain walls and glass-topped tables and a ceaseless clatter of crockery4 ,yes1 it is pathetic for a girl to carry loads of crockery all day1 and try to keep virtuous on a starvation wage4 ,then close the ,o4 ,henry book1 and consult ,moody's ,manual of ,corporations1 and you discover that the great chain of restaurants has been bought by ,standard ,oil2 ,america's 8great clamorer for dividends0 has doubled the prices of the food without improving its quality1 and has failed to raise wages to keep pace with the cost of living4 ,or take ,james ,turner1 who presses hats all day and has to stand on his feet1 which makes them sore2 he finds his escape in reading ,clark ,russell's sea-tales1 and having got a copy1 he is happy even in jail4 ,consult a study of the sweated trades1 and you note that hat pressing is a secondary and parasitic industry1 incapable of being organized2 therefore the poor devil has no one to protect his sore feet4 ,a part of his equipment is a jeering scorn for those who are striving to enlighten him4 8,say10 he asks1 8do ,i look like ,i'd climbed down one of them missing fire-escapes at ,helicon ,hall80 ,that is his way of saying that he has no vision of a better world2 it is ,o4 ,henry's idea of being a sociologist4 7,if you have any curiosity concerning ,helicon ,hall and its fire-escapes1 the story is in 8,the ,brass ,check407 ,the obscure and exploited masses of ,new ,york1 the waitresses and hat-pressers and soda-jerkers and bums and taxi drivers and policemen1 ,o4 ,henry's ,four ,million1 adopted him as their favorite writer1 because he knew their lives1 he loved them1 and they felt that love under the cover of his laughter4 ,and in truth it is a pleasant thing when you are in trouble to find a heart which feels with you2 but it is an even more important thing to find a head which understands the causes of your trouble and can help you to escape it4 ,the ,four ,million will have to look elsewhere than to ,o4 ,henry for that head4 ,there was an essential fact about him which his official biographer fails to mention2 he was a true ,southern gentleman in another respect--that he drank too much4 ,al ,jennings records that he was half drunk when ,jennings encountered him1 sitting in front of the ,american consulate in the little town of ,trujillo1 ,honduras4 ,they proceeded to get all the way drunk1 and to celebrate the ,fourth of ,july by shooting up the place4 ,and there is much other drinking scattered through the story4 ,in the prison ,o4 ,henry was in charge of certain supplies1 and he found that contractors were robbing the prison1 and he wanted to expose them2 but ,jennings showed him that if he did so1 he would get himself thrown into the hole1 and beaten to death by the prison powers who were sharing in the graft4 ,so our poor ,southern gentleman kept silence1 and received large presents of wine and liquor4 ,when he came to ,new ,york1 this habit had him in its grip1 and never let him go4 ,so here is a point about the ,o4 ,henry stories2 they are alcoholic stories1 and take the alcoholic attitude toward life4 ,the friends of ,o4 ,henry1 who spent their time trying to save him1 will understand what all of us know who have had to do with ,southern gentlemen of the old school3 that a victim of alcohol can weep with pity and can mingle laughter with his tears2 he can be charming and beautiful1 gentle and kind2 but one thing he can rarely have1 and that is a firm grasp of the realities about him2 another thing he can never by any possibility have1 and that is an attitude of persistent and unflinching resolve4 ,yet these are exactly the qualities which the ,four ,million will have to develop before they can escape from their slavery in ,bagdad-of-the-,traction-,trust4 ,,chapter ,,cviii ,,supermanhood ,we come now to the first of the writers of our time who was born of the working class1 and carried his working-class consciousness into his literary career4 ,he was the true king of our story tellers1 the brightest star that flashed upon our skies4 ,he brought us the greatest endowment both of genius and of brain1 and the story of what ,america did to him is a painful one4 ,jack ,london was born in ,san ,francisco1 in #ahgf1 which made him two years my senior4 ,we took to exchanging our first books1 and a controversy started between us1 which lasted the rest of his life2 the last letter ,i received from him was an invitation to come up to the ranch and continue it4 8,you and ,i ought to have some #8straight from the shoulder' talk with each other4 ,it is coming to you1 it may be coming to me4 ,it may illuminate one or the other or both of us40 ,i answered that ,i was finishing a job of writing2 but that as soon as the job was done ,i would come and 8stand the gaff40 ,and then ,i read that he was dead6 ,it was the old question1 several times stated in this book1 of self-discipline versus self-indulgence2 or1 as ,jack would have put it1 asceticism versus self-expression4 ,which way will a man get the most out of life8 ,believing in his own nature and giving it rein1 living intensely and fast2 or distrusting his nature1 all nature1 stooping to mean cautions and fears1 imposing a rule upon his impulses--and so cutting himself off from his joyful fellows1 and exposing himself to painful sneers8 ,i see ,jack vividly1 as he was at our first meeting1 when he came to ,new ,york in #aijd or #aije4 ,at that time he was in the full glory of his newly-won fame1 and we young ,socialists had got up a big meeting for him at ,grand ,central ,palace4 ,our hero came on a belated train from ,florida1 arriving when our hearts were sick with despair2 he came1 radiant and thrilling1 in spite of an attack of tonsilitis1 and strode upon the platform amid the waving of red handkerchiefs1 and in a voice of calm defiance read to the city of ,new ,york his essay1 8,revolution40 ,new ,york did not like it1 needless to say4 ,but ,i liked it so well that ,i was prepared to give my hero the admiration of a slave4 ,but we spent the next day together1 chatting of the things we were both absorbed in2 and all that day the hero smoked cigarettes and drank--,i don't remember what it was1 for all these red and brown and green and golden concoctions are equally painful to me1 and the sight of them deprives me of the control of my facial muscles4 ,jack1 of course1 soon noted this2 he was the red-blood1 and ,i was the mollycoddle1 and he must have his fun with me1 in the mood of the oyster pirate and roustabout4 ,tales of incredible debauches2 tales of opium and hashish1 and ,i know not what other strange ingredients2 tales of whisky bouts lasting for weeks6 ,i remember a picture of two sailor boys at sea in a small boat1 unable to escape from each other1 conceiving a furious hatred of each other1 and when they got ashore1 retiring behind the sand-dunes to fight4 ,they fought until they could hardly walk--and then they repaired to town to heal their bruises with alcohol4 ,the next time we met was six or eight years later2 and this time the controversy was more serious4 ,for now ,jack had read 8,love's ,pilgrimage10 and was exasperated by what seemed to him a still less excusable form of asceticism1 that of sex4 ,here was a so-called hero1 a prig of a poet1 driving a young wife to unhappiness by notions born in the dark corners of ,christian monkeries4 ,i am not sure just how ,i defended poor ,thyrsis2 ,i am not sure how clearly ,i myself saw at that time the peculiar working of sex-idealism which had manifested itself in that novel2 the impulse a man has to be ashamed of advantages given to him by nature and society1 and so to put himself chivalrously under the feet of a woman--raising her1 an image of perfection1 upon a pedestal of his own self-reproach4 ,sometimes she refuses to stay upon this pedestal2 and so results a comical plight for a too-imaginative ascetic6 ,the argument between ,jack and myself was handicapped on that occasion by the fact that his voice was almost entirely gone because of a sore throat4 ,he was trying the alcohol treatment2 my last picture of him in the flesh was very much of the flesh1 alas6--with a flask of gin before him1 and the stumps of many cigarettes in his dinner-plate1 and his eyes red and unwholesome-looking4 ,he has told the story of his travels in the ,kingdom of ,alcoholia himself1 told it bravely and completely1 so ,i am not obliged to use any reserve in speaking of this aspect of his life4 ,i went away1 more than ever confirmed as a mollycoddle6 ,but ,jack ,london was a man with a magnificent mind1 and a giant's will4 ,he fought tremendous battles in his own soul--battles in despite of his own false philosophy1 battles which he was fighting even while he was quarreling at other men's self-restraint4 ,he went on a trip around the ,horn1 which lasted several months1 and drank nothing all that time2 also1 he wrote that shining book1 8,john ,barleycorn10 one of the most useful and most entertaining ever penned by a man4 ,it was our habit to send each other our new books1 and to exchange comments on them4 ,when ,i read 8,john ,barleycorn0 ,i wrote that the book had made me realize a new aspect of the drink problem1 a wrong it did to men who never touched it--in depriving them of companionship1 making them exiles among their fellows4 ,so much of men's intercourse depends upon and is colored by drinking6 ,i1 for example1 had always felt that my friendship with ,jack ,london had been limited by that disharmony4 ,he wrote in reply that ,i was mistaken2 it was especially with my attitude towards sex that he disagreed4 ,we exchanged some letters about the matter1 and mentally prepared ourselves for that duel which will never be fought4 ,in concluding the subject of alcohol1 let me point out that ,jack himself settled the controversy by voting for 8,california ,dry0 at the election held a few days before his death4 ,his explanation was that while he enjoyed drinking1 he was willing to forego that enjoyment for the sake of the younger generation2 and it would indeed be a graceless ascetic who asked more than that6 ,so far as concerns the matter of sex1 the test of a man's philosophy is that at the age of forty he has kept his belief in womankind1 in the joy and satisfaction that true love may give4 ,where the philosophy of 8self-expression0 had led ,jack ,london was known to many who heard him tell of a book he planned to write1 giving the whole story of his experiences with women4 ,he meant to write it with the same ruthless honesty he had used in 8,john ,barleycorn02 revealing his tragic disillusionment1 and his contempt for woman as a parasite1 a creature of vanity and self-indulgence4 ,jack's conquests among the sex had been many1 and too easy1 it would seem2 like most fighters1 he despised an unworthy antagonist4 ,the women who threw themselves at his head came from all classes of society1 drawn to him as moths to a flame2 but it is evident that his philosophy was to blame for the fact that there were so few among them he could respect4 ,there were surely many able to hold the interest of a great man1 who did not share his philosophy1 and therefore remained unnoticed by him4 ,it is not generally the custom to write of these things in plain words2 but in the case of ,jack ,london it would be futile to do otherwise1 because he spoke of them freely1 and would have written of them in the same way4 ,his whole attitude was a challenge to truth-telling1 a call for frankness1 even to the point of brutality4 ,the book he planned was to be published under some such name as 8,jack ,liverpool0--which you must admit would hardly have been a very adequate disguise4 ,i have heard one of his best friends say that he is glad ,jack never lived to write it4 ,for my part1 believing as ,i do that the salvation of the race depends upon unmasking the falsehoods of our class-morality--the institution which ,i call 8marriage plus prostitution0--,i cannot but sigh for this lost story4 ,what an awakening it would have brought to the mothers of our so-called 8better classes10 if ,jack ,london had ever given to the world the true story of his experiences with their daughters6 ,as a school boy in ,oakland1 for example1 with the young girls of the comfortable classes in that city6 ,he and his companions1 sons of workingmen and poor people1 looking up to the great world above them inquiringly1 made the strange discovery that these shining1 golden-haired pets of luxury1 guarded at home and in their relations with their social equals by the thousand sleepless eyes of scandal1 found it safe and pleasant to repair to secret rendezvous among the willow thickets of ,lake ,merritt1 and there play the nymph to handsome and sturdy fauns of a class below the level ever reached by the thousand sleepless eyes6 ,when you listened to a narrative such as that1 you realized the grim meaning that ,jack ,london put into his essay1 8,what ,life ,means to ,me10 telling of the embitterment that came to him when he1 the oyster pirate and roustabout1 broke into the 8parlor floor of society03 ,where they were not alive with rottenness1 quick with unclean life1 they were merely the unburied dead4444 ,the women were gowned beautifully1 ,i admit2 but to my naive surprise ,i discovered that they were of the same clay as all the rest of the women ,i had known down below in the cellar4444 ,it is true these beautifully gowned1 beautiful women prattled sweet little ideals and dear little moralities2 but1 in spite of their prattle1 the dominant key of the life they lived was materialistic4 ,and they were so sentimentally selfish6 ,they assisted in all kinds of sweet little charities and informed one of the fact1 while all the time the food they ate and the beautiful clothes they wore were bought out of dividends stained with the blood of child labor1 and sweated labor1 and prostitution itself4 ,jack ,london had a dream of another kind of love2 the dream of a strong1 free1 proud woman1 the mate for a strong1 free1 proud man4 ,this dream came into his writings at the start2 into 8,a ,daughter of the ,snows10 his third novel--the very name of it1 you perceive4 ,this story1 published in the second year of the present century1 was crude and boyish1 but it had the promise of his dawning greatness1 and was the occasion of my first letter to him1 and the beginning of our friendship4 ,afterwards he told this same dream of the perfect mating1 over and over again2 he continued to tell it long after he had ceased to believe in it4 ,this necessity of writing about sex in a way that was utterly insincere must have been the main cause of that contempt for his own fiction which ,london was so swift and vehement to proclaim4 ,the expression of this contempt was the most startling thing about him1 to any one who admired his work4 8,i loathe the stuff when ,i have done it4 ,i do it because ,i want money and it's an easy way to get it4 ,but if ,i could have my choice about it ,i never would put pen to paper--except to write a ,socialist essay1 to tell the bourgeois world how much ,i despise it40 ,i remember trying to persuade him that he must have enjoyed writing the best of his stories--8,the ,sea ,wolf0 and 8,the ,call of the ,wild02 but he would not have it so4 ,he was a man of action2 he liked to sail a boat1 to run a ranch1 to fight for ,socialism4 ,his real attitude towards woman was expressed in 8,martin ,eden10 his most autobiographical novel1 whose hero gives his final conclusion about life by dropping himself out of the porthole of an ocean steamer at night4 ,this hero is a working boy1 who makes a desperate struggle to rise from poverty2 but the girl of the world of culture1 whom he idealizes and worships1 proves a coward and fails him in his need4 ,that is one wrong an uncomprehending woman can do to a man2 and yet another is to comprehend his weaker part too well4 ,i have heard friends of ,london's boyhood tell how he came back from the ,klondike with the flush of his youthful dream upon him--the dream of the primitive female1 the 8mate0 of the strong and proud and free man2 and how a shrewd young woman saw her chance and proceeded to play the primitive female in drawing-rooms1 leaping over tables and chairs1 and otherwise exhibiting abounding energy4 ,but when this game had accomplished its purpose she did no more leaping1 but 8settled down10 as the phrase is2 and so came a divorce4 ,this 8,martin ,eden0 is assuredly one of ,jack ,london's greatest works2 he put his real soul into it1 and the fact that it was so little known and read1 must have been of evil significance to him4 ,it taught him that if an ,american writer wants to earn a living with his pen--especially an extravagant living--it is necessary that he should avoid dealing in any true and vital way with the theme of sex4 ,either he must write over and over again the dream of primitive and perfect mating1 a phenomenon unreal and unconvincing to people who are not primitive1 but who have intellects as well as bodies to mate2 or else1 if he deals with modern life1 he must give us details of the splendid and devastating passions of the prosperous--the kind of perfumed poison now all the rage4 ,one saw the beginning of that in 8,the ,little ,lady of the ,big ,house10 and ,i count this book the most sinister sign in the life of ,jack ,london4 ,a man can hardly have a thirty-six thousand dollar a year contract with the ,hearst magazines and still keep his soul alive6 ,i would say to myself1 mournfully1 that ,america had 8got0 ,jack ,london1 just as it 8got0 ,mark ,twain6 ,but then something would happen to show me that ,i had given up hope too soon4 ,jack had a mind which worked unceasingly1 and impelled him irresistibly2 he had a love of truth that was a passion1 a hatred of injustice that burned volcanic fires4 ,he was a deeply sad man1 a bitterly1 cruelly suffering man1 and no one could tell what new vision he would forge in the heat of his genius4 ,if ,i write of him here severely it is because ,i believe in the rigid truth1 which he himself preached2 but ,i would not leave anyone with the idea that ,i do not appreciate his greatness1 both as a writer and a man4 ,there were many among his friends and mine who gave him up4 ,he went to ,hawaii1 and the 8smart set0 there made a lion of him1 and he condescended to refer appreciatively to their 8sweet little charities0 on behalf of the races they were exploiting4 ,he went to ,mexico1 and fell under the spell of the efficiency of oil engineers1 and wrote for 8,collier's ,weekly0 a series of articles which caused radicals to break out in rage4 ,jack was a boy to the end1 and must make new discoveries and have new enthusiasms4 ,if a naval officer took him over a battleship1 he would perceive that it was a marvelous and thrilling machine2 but then in the quiet hours of the night he would see the pitiful white faces of the stokers1 to whom as a guest of an officer he had not been introduced6 ,yes1 for he had been in the place of these stokers1 and their feelings had been stamped upon his soul4 ,he might set up to be a country gentleman1 and fall into a fury with his 8hands0 for their stupidity and incompetence2 but if you said to him1 8,how about the class war80 instantly he would be there with his mind4 8,yes1 of course1 ,i know how they feel2 if ,i were in their place ,i would never do a stroke of work ,i did not have to40 ,it is a stressful thing to have an imagination1 and to see many sides of life at once6 ,jack had a divine pity1 he had wept over the ,east ,end of ,london as ,jesus wept over ,jerusalem4 ,for years afterwards the memories of this stunted and debased population haunted him beyond all peace2 the pictures he wrote of them in 8,the ,people of the ,abyss0 will be read by posterity with horror and incredulity1 and recognized as among the most powerful products of his pen4 ,those1 with his vivid and intensely felt ,socialist essays1 constitute him one of the great revolutionary figures of our history4 ,i know that he kept a spark of that sacred fire burning to the very end1 for a little over a year before his death ,i tried him with the bulky manuscript of 8,the ,cry for ,justice40 ,the preface he wrote for it is one of the finest things he ever did1 and some of it will be carved upon his monument3 ,it is so simple a remedy1 merely service4 ,not one ignoble thought or act is demanded of any one of all men and women in the world to make fair the world4 ,the call is for nobility of thinking1 nobility of doing4 ,the call is for service1 and such is the wholesomeness of it1 he who serves all best serves himself4 ,that is what life had taught him at the end4 ,but it was not easy for him to learn such a lesson1 for he had an imperious nature1 fierce in its demands1 and never entirely to be tamed4 ,the struggle between individualism and ,socialism was going on in his whole being all the time4 ,in the copy of 8,martin ,eden0 which he sent me he wrote3 8,one of my motifs in this book was an attack on individualism 7in the person of the hero74 ,i must have bungled for so far not a single reviewer has discovered it40 ,after reading the book ,i replied that it was easy to understand the befuddlement of the critics2 for he had shown such sympathy with his hard-driving individualist hero that it would hardly occur to anyone to take the character as a warning and a reproach4 ,you feel that same thing in all his books--in 8,the ,sea ,wolf10 and especially in 8,the ,mutiny of the ,elsinore02 the ,nietzschean world-conqueror has conquered ,london's imagination1 in spite of his reason and his conscience4 ,if ,i have written here with cruel frankness about the personal tragedies of his life1 it is because ,i would not have posterity continue in the misunderstanding of which he complained in the case of 8,martin ,eden40 ,no1 do not make that mistake about his life and its meaning2 most certainly it is not a glorification of the red-blooded superman1 trampling all things under his feet1 gratifying his imperious desires4 ,rather is it a demonstration of the fact that the world-conquering superman1 trampling all things under his feet and gratifying all his desires1 commits suicide by swallowing laudanum at the age of forty1 because pleasure and wealth and fame have turned to ashes on his lips4 ,jack's friends say that the cause was a desire for two women at the same time2 but ,i don't believe that a mature1 intellectual man will kill himself for such a reason1 unless his moral forces have been sapped by years of self-indulgence4 ,it was the 8,martin ,eden0 ending1 which had haunted ,jack ,london all his life1 and which in the end he made a reality4 ,what a shame1 and what a tragedy to our literature1 that capitalist ,america1 the philosophy of individualist greed and selfishness1 should have stolen away the soul of this man1 with all his supreme and priceless gifts6 ,he had seen so clearly our vision of fellowship and social justice--how clearly1 let him tell you in his own words1 the last words he wrote upon ethical matters3 ,he1 who by understanding becomes converted to the gospel of service1 will serve truth to confute liars and make them truth-tellers2 will serve kindness so that brutality will perish2 will serve beauty to the erasement of all that is not beautiful4 ,and he who is strong will serve the weak that they may become strong4 ,he will devote his strength not to the debasement and defilement of his weaker fellows1 but to the making of opportunity for them to make themselves into men rather than into slaves and beasts4 ,these words are from 8,the ,cry for ,justice10 8this humanist ,holy ,book10 as ,london called it4 ,such words1 and actions based upon them1 make precious his memory1 and will preserve it as long as anything in ,american literature is preserved4 ,perhaps the best thing ,i can add to this chapter is a statement of what ,i personally owed to him--the utmost one writer can owe to another4 ,when he was at the height of his fame1 and ,i was unknown1 ,i sent him proofs of 8,the ,jungle10 explaining that ,i had been unable to find a publisher1 and wished to raise money to publish the book myself4 ,there are many jealousies in the literary world2 some who win its laurels by bitter struggle are not eager to raise up rivals4 ,but ,jack was not one of these2 he wrote a letter about the book1 hailing it as 8,the #8,uncle ,tom's ,cabin' of ,wage ,slavery10 and rallying the ,socialist movement as by a bugle-call to its support4 ,if that book went all over the world1 it was ,jack ,london's push that started it2 and ,i am only one of a score of authors who might tell the same story of generous and eager support4 ,,chapter ,,cix ,,the ,,stealthy ,,nemesis ,while ,i am writing this book death swings his scythe1 and two more artists enter the ghostly marathon of ,fame4 ,the first of them is ,joseph ,conrad4 ,away back in my early days someone sent me from ,england a copy of his first novel1 8,almayer's ,folly10 and after that ,i kept watch1 and managed somehow to get hold of 8,heart of ,darkness0 and 8,lord ,jim0 and 8,youth40 ,i used to rave about these books to everyone ,i knew2 but when at last ,conrad became famous ,i had a secret resentment--he had been mine for so long that ,i did not like to give him up to those who did not understand him6 ,in his later writings he deteriorated1 as many old men do1 and ,i saw the critics giving to these inferior books the praise which belonged to the earlier ones4 ,conrad's death has been the occasion for much discussion of the 8romanticism0 of his novels4 ,the fact is that he was as realistic as he knew how to be4 ,the reason he seems 8romantic0 is because the scenes and characters of his stories are remote and strange to us4 ,but they were not at all strange to ,conrad2 he had sailed these ,eastern seas and met these people1 and their tragic fates were as commonplace to him as street-car traffic to us4 ,one other thing the obituary reviews agree upon--that he was the perfect type of the 8pure0 artist1 who gave us immortal fiction without trace of purpose4 ,and that ,i call a joke for the ages3 ,joseph ,conrad being as grim and determined a propagandist as ever used fiction for a medium4 ,most of the time he carries on this propaganda with the ,olympian calm of one who is sure of his thesis and fears no dispute4 ,but now and then he stumbles upon some personality or point of view which seems to threaten his doctrine2 and then suddenly the front of ,jove becomes wrinkled1 and the eyes of ,jove shoot flames1 and we discover the great ,olympian in a venomous fury4 ,the strangest fact about this master of ,english prose is that he was born in ,poland1 and began life as a sailor1 shipping on ,french craft in the ,mediterranean4 ,he was born in #aheg and came to ,england at the age of twenty-one2 he rose in the ,british merchant service to become a captain1 and was nearly forty before his first novel was published4 ,this man paces the quarter-deck through the long night watches in lonely silent seas4 ,he reflects upon life1 and comes to a conclusion about it4 ,but it is not the conclusion officially recommended by his native countrymen2 this merchant captain does not pray to the ,virgin ,mary for the safety of his ship and the souls of those on board2 neither does he accept the official formula of his adopted country1 in whose churches the congregations implore3 ,eternal ,father1 strong to save1 ,whose arm hath bound the restless wave1 ,who bidd'st the mighty ocean deep ,its own appointed limits keep3 ,o hear us when we cry to ,thee ,for those in peril on the sea4 ,no1 in the fiction of ,joseph ,conrad the gods1 both male and female1 have shriveled up and crumbled and blown away as dust1 and over the universe there broods a dark inscrutable fate4 ,conrad himself puts it into words3 8a stealthy ,nemesis lies in wait40 ,you see1 he uses the classic symbol1 and unites in one blending the terror of four different races--,greek1 ,polish1 ,english and ,malay4 ,this 8stealthy ,nemesis0 is the enemy of men1 and they fight against it1 and almost invariably it overcomes them and destroys them1 the good and generous and capable as well as the cowardly and weak4 ,such is the fact of man's life2 and the question then becomes3 what shall man do8 ,the first thing1 obviously1 is for him to understand2 and so the great master toils incessantly and with religious ardor to embody his philosophic theory in human types and experiences4 ,do not let anyone lead you astray on this point3 these dignified and noble art-works are 8thesis novels10 composed for a didactic purpose1 in exactly the same way as the ,sunday school tales about little ,bobbie who fell into the creek because he disobeyed his mother and went fishing on the ,lord's day4 ,great moral lessons do not get embodied in art-works by accident1 any more than the wheels of a watch get put together by accident2 so1 while you absorb the elaborately contrived pessimism of ,joseph ,conrad1 you must know that you are attending an ,agnostic ,sunday school4 ,men have not merely to understand1 but to act2 therefore the pupils of this school are taught a moral code4 ,they must stand together against the stealthy ,nemesis which seeks to destroy them2 and their rules of behavior must be so deeply graven in their souls that the reaction will be instinctive--for you never know at what moment the stealthy ,nemesis will strike at you1 in the form of fire at sea1 or storm1 or collision1 or submerged reefs1 or savages1 or the slow1 insidious action of physical or moral disease4 ,what is this code8 ,the answer is1 the code of the ,british merchant service4 ,its primary purpose is the protection of the ship1 a valuable piece of property4 ,so1 in place of an imaginary ,god in a speculative heaven1 we have a vaguely suggested ,owner on the shore4 ,this ,owner is the force which creates the shipping industry and keeps it going2 ,he is the goal of loyalty for officers and crew4 ,agnosticism upon closer study turns out to be ,capitalism4 ,the ship has for ages been the source of a natural and spontaneous autocracy1 begotten of the constant threat of danger2 hence it comes that the naval officer is the most complete and instinctive snob in the world1 and the merchant officer the perfect task-master4 ,and when the self-made1 risen-from-the-ranks merchant officer comes on shore1 and has to deal with shore questions1 we are not surprised to find him a hearty and boisterous ,tory4 ,in 8,chance0 we meet--but assuredly not by chance6--a feminist woman1 and learn what ,conrad thinks of this species2 he impresses us as a fuming old ,british clubman1 who would like to get the heads of all thinking women upon one neck--and then wring the neck6 ,in the same way1 in 8,under ,western ,eyes0 we get ,conrad's view of politics2 in a book written in the days of the ,tsardom1 we learn that a ,siberian refugee who devotes his life to the overthrow of this hideous tyranny is an odious and unspeakable creature1 and that a woman of means who helps him is a gawk and a bundle of scandals4 ,it is a picture of social revolutionists of a sort you may pick up at any tea-table where the wives of legation attachs shrug their delicate white shoulders and prattle snobbish wit4 ,published in #aiaa1 this book is a prophecy of the ,white ,terror1 that combination of holy knavery and romantic reaction which has made ,poland the curse of ,europe4 ,but the proper place to study ,conrad is at sea4 ,and we find that1 just as ,meredith takes the ,british caste system to be ,god1 just as ,o4 ,henry takes the ,standard ,oil ,company to be ,god1 so ,conrad takes the capitalist ownership and control of marine transportation4 ,analyzing the stories in the light of economic science1 we find the stealthy ,nemesis revealed as organized greed exploiting unorganized ignorance4 ,take that most fascinating of sea tales1 one of the great imaginative feats of literature3 take 8,youth40 ,a young man puts out to sea in an old tub of a vessel1 and the old tub goes to pieces beneath his feet4 ,one after another comes a procession of calamities2 but he is young1 and what does he care for troubles and dangers8 ,the ship goes down in the end1 but it is all a glory and a thrill to ,youth1 which laughs at the stealthy ,nemesis and lives to tackle it again4 ,when we are young we read this1 and our hearts are lifted up1 and we know ourselves to be gods4 ,but with maturing years and understanding1 we come back to it1 and what do we find8 ,the cruel power which we took to be ,nature1 the perils of the deep1 turns out to be nothing more romantic than the practice of marine insurance6 ,if you own a ship and it becomes old and unseaworthy1 you would in the ordinary course of events not trust a valuable cargo and a score of human lives to that ship4 ,but finding that you can insure both ship and cargo1 and get more money by sinking her than by selling her for junk1 you continue to send her out until she falls to pieces2 and ,youth1 deliberately kept in ignorance by capitalist control of schools and colleges1 thinks it glory and wonder to sail out and fight a losing battle with 8,nature40 ,there is a story concerning ,joseph ,conrad1 that when he became master of a ship1 he conceived a desire to bring her home through the ,torres ,straits1 which are especially dangerous waters4 ,he had the fantastic idea that he wanted to sail in them1 because he had read stories about them4 ,the owners permitted him to have his way1 and the critics and reviewers are thrilled by this sign of 8romance0 in ship owners4 ,critics and reviewers1 you see1 are sweet and innocent souls2 only an evil-minded 8muck-rake man0 would make inquiries as to the age of that ship and the amount of insurance she carried through the ,torres ,straits6 ,the capitalist shipping industry is full of facts of this sort4 ,take1 for example1 the 8,plimsoll line40 ,there was an ,english workingman who became a rich manufacturer1 and did not forget his class1 but devoted his life to trying to save the seamen and officers who were sent out in these 8coffin ships40 ,he was elected to ,parliament1 and brought in a bill providing that ships should not be loaded beyond a certain line--the 8,plimsoll line10 it was called4 ,when his fellow-members voted it down1 he shook his fist at them and called them 8villains40 ,of course they were shocked1 and wanted to expel him1 but they didn't quite dare2 they gave him ten days to think it over1 and then he apologized1 and they passed his bill--a most admirable form of compromise for a reformer6 ,for a generation after this1 as cold statistics showed1 some thousands of ,british seamen and officers escaped all the cruelties of ,nature1 the stealthy ,nemesis of ,joseph ,conrad4 ,for years this 8,plimsoll line0 served these thousands of seamen and officers in place of the ,holy ,trinity1 the ,father1 ,son and ,holy ,ghost1 the ,gentle ,jesus meek and mild1 the ,virgin ,mary1 ,mother of ,god1 and likewise all the ,saints in the calendar1 the glorious company of the ,apostles1 the goodly fellowship of the ,prophets1 the noble ,army of ,martyrs1 the heavenly choir of ,angels and ,archangels1 the ,cherubim and ,seraphim1 and the ,holy ,church throughout all the world4 ,but this divine supervision cost ,british shipping owners a certain number of millions of pounds of profit every year1 and so they paid the campaign funds of their ,tory and ,liberal parties and got their henchman1 ,david ,lloyd-,george1 in authority and repealed that law2 so now those thousands of seamen and officers are once more falling victims to the stealthy ,nemesis6 ,and ,joseph ,conrad--what has he to say about this8 ,as a man of the sea1 he knows the facts2 and in 8,the ,nigger of the ,narcissus10 that most cruel-souled book1 he takes occasion to pour his jeering scorn upon those who try to save the lives of seamen4 ,you have to read the actual text to get the full effect of his venom4 ,a seaman is talking3 8,i mind ,i once seed in ,cardiff the crew of an overloaded ship--leastways she weren't overloaded1 only a fatherly old gentleman with a white beard and an umbreller came along the quay and talked to the hands4 ,said as how it was crool hard to be drownded in winter just for the sake of a few pounds more for the owner--he said4 ,nearly cried over them--he did2 and he had a square mainsail coat1 and a gaff-topsail hat too--all proper4 ,so they chaps1 they said they wouldn't go to be drownded in winter--depending upon that 'ere ,plimsoll man to see 'em through the court4 ,they thought to have a bloomin' lark and two or three days' spree4 ,and the beak giv' 'em six weeks--coss the ship warn't overloaded4 ,anyways they made it out in court that she wasn't4 ,there wasn't one overloaded ship in ,penarth ,dock at all4 #8,pears that old coon he was only on pay and allowance for some kind people1 under orders to look for overloaded ships1 and he couldn't see no further than the length of his umbreller4 ,some of us in the boarding-house1 where ,i live when ,i'm looking for a ship in ,cardiff1 stood by to duck that old weeping spunger in the dock4 ,we kept a good look out1 too--but he topped his boom directly he was outside the court4444 ,yes4 ,they got six weeks' hard44440 ,the coast of ,california1 near which ,i live1 is a favored lurking place of the stealthy ,nemesis4 ,the entire coast is a line of jagged rocks1 with very few harbors1 and vessels continually strike upon the rocks and are pounded to pieces4 ,sometimes they are great passenger steamers1 and hundreds of people are in danger and have to be taken off on tugs2 the newspapers give us hourly bulletins of what is happening1 and their correspondents perform prodigies of daring and speed to get us photographs of the disaster in the first editions4 ,the public reads of these tragedies1 and is awed by the spectacle of man struggling in vain against the stealthy ,nemesis4 ,what is the fact about this matter8 ,it is very simple3 the ,nemesis here consists of the fact that the ,pacific ,coast from ,seattle to ,san ,diego makes a convex curve2 so ships of all sorts1 the great lumber schooners1 the little salmon steamers1 the great passenger liners1 have to go a few miles farther out to sea in order to be safe4 ,but that additional distance at sea means so many million dollars a year out of the pockets of the owners4 ,it means not merely that more fuel has to be burned1 it means that more of the ship's time has to be taken1 and more wages paid to officers and crew2 in the case of the great liners it means that several hundred passengers have to be fed an additional meal6 ,so naturally the owners1 being fully covered by insurance1 are clamorous in their demands1 and the ship's officers are bending all their energies to save every yard of distance and every second of time4 ,always and everywhere up and down the coast they are gliding past the rocky points1 and in the darkness and fogs and storms they risk an inch too much4 ,to me this seems an eminently 8romantic0 situation2 ,i can imagine a great imaginative artist rearing it into a tremendous symbol of human guilt4 ,but this artist would make the discovery that the principal magazines on the ,pacific ,coast are published by the railroad companies which own and operate the steamship lines6 ,every hour the progress of science increases man's control over nature1 and therefore the safety of travel at sea4 ,if it were not for private ownership and the blind race for profits1 these dangers would be largely a memory1 and the stealthy ,nemesis of ,conrad1 like the gods of the ,polish ,catholic and the ,anglican ,protestant churches1 would shrivel up and crumble and blow away as dust4 ,would ,conrad like that8 ,or would he feel the irritation of an old man who has staked his reputation upon a bad guess8 ,he gives you the answer in 8,the ,nigger of the ,narcissus10 a whole novel written to satirize the altruistic impulse1 and expose it as a destroyer of discipline and character4 ,he assigns the role of 8agitator0 at sea to an odious little ,cockney rat2 and when this creature has got the poor crew stirred up to mutiny1 what sport ,conrad has with them6 ,such lofty sarcasm3 ,our little world went on its curved and unswerving path carrying a discontented and aspiring population4 ,they found comfort of a gloomy kind in an interminable and conscientious analysis of their unappreciated worth2 and inspired by ,donkin's hopeful doctrines they dreamed enthusiastically of the time when every lonely ship would travel over a serene sea1 manned by a wealthy and well-fed crew of satisfied skippers4 ,in the chapter on ,matthew ,arnold ,i mentioned ,paul ,elmer ,more as a critic who has based his reputation upon the thesis of man's helplessness in the presence of the universe2 ,i explained ,matthew ,arnold as a poet who finds his ideal both moral and poetical in a dignified and mournful resignation to the evils of life4 ,and here is another of these ,great ,mourners1 a zealot of ,pessimism4 ,woe to you1 if in his ,agnostic ,sunday school you venture to breathe a hope for mankind6 ,woe to you if you commit the supreme offense of art1 the suggesting of a happy ending for a novel6 ,woe to you1 beyond all land-woes2 for now you are in ,neptune's empire1 and there is no ,bill of ,rights1 no freedom of speech1 press or assemblage2 he who murmurs an optimistic thought hears the dread word ,mutiny--and the 8beak0 gives him 8six months hard60 ,,chapter ,,cx ,,the ,,rebel ,,immortal ,henry ,james remarks somewhere that an ,american has to study for fifty years of his life in order to attain1 culturally speaking1 the point from which a ,european starts at birth4 ,just what does he mean by this unpatriotic utterance8 ,i am reminded of it when ,i think of ,anatole ,france1 and recall his characteristic sayings4 ,consider the following3 ',tis a great infirmity to think4 ,god preserve you from it1 my son1 as ,he has preserved ,his greatest saints1 and the souls whom ,he loves with especial tenderness and destines to eternal felicity4 ,now it is possible to conceive of a ,catholic bishop or a ,methodist missionary or a ,kleagle of the ,ku ,klux ,klan who might be too stupid to understand that remark2 but it is difficult to conceive how1 understanding it1 he could withhold the tribute of a smile4 ,into this remark a great master of words has distilled the essence of a civilization1 the precious flavor of centuries of culture4 ,there are only thirty-four words in it1 and yet you can afford to meditate upon it for a long time4 ,the writer of such a paragraph possesses a mind emancipated from the shams and delusions of the ages2 he is skeptical1 realistic1 and as witty as it is possible for a man to be2 yet also he is urbane--he does not seize you by the shoulders and shake you1 for he has learned that there are all kinds of strange people in the world1 and he asks merely that you consent to smile with him4 ,how is such a man brought into existence8 ,his father was a book-seller1 and so he breathed culture in his childhood2 he read everything from every part of the world1 especially things written by men long since dead2 things full of that beauty mingled with sadness which is one of the gifts of time4 ,anatole ,france learned to be at home in strange cultures1 and at the same time he studied the masters of his own country1 whose specialties are precision and lucidity and charm of phrase4 ,at the age of twenty-seven he published a story1 8,the ,crime of ,sylvestre ,bonnard10 a sentimental pretty tale about an elderly1 kind-hearted ,french antiquarian1 who rescues a little girl from cruel mistreatment1 and then discovers that under the ,french law he is guilty of abduction4 ,it might have been written by any of our magazine writers of the cheer-up1 ,god's-in-,his-,heaven school--provided only that these writers had possessed a thousand years of culture4 ,it was just what the ,academy of ,richelieu loved1 and they crowned it4 ,the young writer was taken up by an exquisite ,french lady1 who became his mistress1 and set up a salon for him1 and helped him to meet all the editors and critics--which is how you make fame and fortune in ,paris1 and sometimes in ,america1 ,i am told4 ,this ,frenchman was clever and witty1 sensual1 cynical1 but not too much so for his elegant free-thinking tradition4 ,he wrote other novels and a great quantity of miscellaneous writings1 and in #ahif1 at the age of fifty-two1 his labors were rewarded by the great ,french honor1 he became one of ,richelieu's forty ,immortals4 ,in the ordinary course of events there was nothing more for him to do1 save to sink back in his comfortable arm-chair and listen to the plaudits of ,paris4 ,but a strange and alarming thing happened4 ,the struggle over the ,dreyfus case arose1 and ,anatole ,france leaped into the arena1 joining ,zola1 whom he had previously denounced as a beastly writer4 ,here was something absolutely without precedent--that an ,academician should turn into a ,socialist1 and take to attending meetings of workingmen1 and addressing to them remarks unfit to be quoted in respectable newspapers4 ,worse even yet1 he1 the pride and glory of art-for-art's-sake culture1 took to putting radical propaganda into novels6 ,they had let him in among the ,immortals1 and there was no way to get him out2 so here was one of the pillars of literary authority1 portraying his country as an island of penguins1 and the pillars of his church and state as grotesque1 wingless birds1 dressing themselves in frock-coats and silk hats and hopping about upon obscene errands4 ,have a glimpse of them3 8,do you see1 my son10 he exclaimed1 8that madman who with his teeth is biting the nose of the adversary he has overthrown1 and that other one who is pounding a woman's head with a huge stone80 8,i see them10 said ,bulloch4 8,they are creating law2 they are founding property2 they are establishing the principles of civilization1 the basis of society1 the foundations of the ,state40 8,how is that80 asked old ,mal4 8,by setting bounds to their fields4 ,that is the origin of all government4 ,your penguins1 ,o ,master1 are performing the most august of functions4 ,throughout the ages their work will be consecrated by lawyers1 and magistrates will confirm it40 8,penguin ,island0 was published in #aijh2 and then came the war1 and this elderly antiquarian--he was seventy then--came forward and enlisted to fight for his country4 ,but that did not mean1 as with many others of lesser judgment1 that he gave up his hopes for the working class1 and surrendered to the propaganda of capitalist nationalism4 ,we find him at the age of seventy-five1 carrying a red flag in a procession of ,french radicals1 protesting against the acquittal of the assassin of ,jaurs4 ,we find him ready to break an engagement to a literary banquet in order to address a working-class meeting in protest against capitalist church and state4 ,he1 the greatest of all the ,immortals1 sets himself against the other thirty-nine2 he1 the old man1 sets himself against the cultured youth of his country1 who have abandoned themselves to a mixture of ,catholic mysticism with homosexuality1 of ,dadaist imbecility with athleticism having for its goal the turning of machine-guns upon the workers4 ,the books of ,anatole ,france afford a curious study of struggle between the old pessimistic1 cynical culture of capitalism and the new creative culture of the awakening proletariat4 ,these cultures are absolutely irreconcilable1 but ,anatole ,france believed in both4 ,he was a social revolutionist with his conscious mind and judgment1 while he remained a fatalist and a scoffer with his hereditary culture1 that ancient accumulation of despair and terror which he had breathed in with the dust in his father's old book-shop4 ,so he writes 8,the ,gods ,are ,athirst10 in which he portrays mankind as given up to endless misery and destruction2 or 8,the ,revolt of the ,angels10 in which again the heavens are drowned in blood and there is no hope4 ,after which he issues a manifesto upholding ,russia1 or calling upon the workers to rally to the ,third ,international4 ,he goes before a convention of the organized teachers of ,france1 and delivers to them an address of such magnificent eloquence as to move the assemblage to tears4 ,i have quoted from this address in 8,the ,goslings02 ,i repeat one paragraph--because it is the duty of a writer to spread these words on every possible occasion1 to bring to the great master the help upon which he relies3 ,reason1 wisdom1 intelligence1 forces of the mind and heart1 whom ,i have always devoutly invoked1 come to me1 aid me1 sustain my feeble voice2 carry it1 if that may be1 to all the peoples of the world1 and diffuse it everywhere where there are men of good will to hear the beneficent truth6 ,a new order of things is born4 ,the powers of evil die1 poisoned by their crime4 ,the greedy and the cruel1 the devourers of peoples1 are bursting with an indigestion of blood4 ,however sorely stricken by the sins of their blind or corrupt masters1 mutilated1 decimated1 the proletarians remain erect2 they will unite to form one universal proletariat1 and we shall see fulfilled the great ,socialist prophecy3 8,the union of the workers will be the peace of the world40 ,it was interesting to note1 in the obituaries which the death of ,anatole ,france brought forth1 how almost universally this aspect of his life was glossed over4 ,our literary reviews told all about him as a master of ,french prose1 a supreme ironist in the tradition of ,rabelais1 ,voltaire1 and ,renan4 ,but they left it for the radical papers to celebrate ,anatole ,france1 the crusader1 the carrier of the red flag4 ,i am urged to believe that our literary ,tories are honest1 but all this moves me to wonder4 ,i ask them1 once for all1 what is it they want8 ,what proof will content our cultural stand-patters8 ,here is their crowned favorite1 their revered master1 the man who was as witty as it is possible for a human being to be2 and he sets out to prove to them that it is just as easy to be witty in the service of ,justice as in the service of ,mammon4 ,i ask you1 gentlemen of letters1 do you know how a sentence can be wittier than this3 8,the law in its majestic equality forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges1 to beg in the streets1 and to steal bread40 ,,chapter ,,cxi ,a ,,text-,,book ,,for ,,russia ,mrs4 ,ogi has been silent for some time2 saving her energies in anticipation of that greatest satisfaction known to wives4 ,now she takes it4 8,i told you so60 8,what did you tell me80 asks ,ogi1 uneasily4 8,you have filled up a book1 and haven't got in a word about ,gloria ,swanson's salary1 nor what ,rupert ,hughes really got for #8,the ,sins of ,hollywood'60 8,it's this way10 says her husband4 8,i found ,i had so much material that ,i'd have to make two volumes1 one dealing with the artists of the past1 and the other with living artists40 8,i remember1 eight years ago10 says ,mrs4 ,ogi1 8you started out to write a criticism of the world's culture in one volume2 and presently you came to me looking worried1 and said you had so much about ,religion it would need a volume to itself4 ,so you took a hundred thousand words for ,religion4 ,and when you started after ,journalism1 and took a hundred thousand words to tell the story of your own life1 and another hundred thousand to tell about the newspapers4 ,and then ,education2 you came again and said you had so much about the colleges1 you'd have to give a whole volume to them4 ,you took two hundred and five thousand words for the colleges1 and then a hundred and ninety-five thousand for the schools60 ,as ,ogi has no answer to this indictment1 she continues3 8,just what do you think you've written now80 8,i've written a text-book of culture40 8,for the schools80--very sarcastically4 8,it will be serving as a text-book in the high schools of ,russia within six months40 8,in ,russia1 yes--0 8,in every country in ,europe1 as soon as the social revolution comes4 ,the workers1 taking power1 bring a new psychology and a new ethics2 naturally they have to have a new art1 and new art standards40 8,they may want to write their own text-books10 suggests ,mrs4 ,ogi4 8,no doubt they will--and better than mine4 ,but so far no one has done it--and they will have to use such weapons as they find ready40 ,mrs4 ,ogi is one of those who observe the phenomena of religion with a mingling of fear and longing4 ,it would be wonderful to believe like that6 8,of course10 she says1 8if your side has its way--0 8,that is how history is made10 says ,ogi4 8,once upon a time a wealthy ,virginia planter1 with other wealthy gentlemen from ,pennsylvania and ,massachusetts1 rose up and declared rebellion against his king4 ,a war was fought1 and the rebel planter won2 therefore he is known as the ,father of ,his ,country1 and all little boys in school learn how he could not tell a lie4 ,if he had lost his war against his king1 he would have been a vile and traitorous varlet1 and every little boy in school would have learned by heart a long list of the lies he had told4 ,and just so it is with writers who take up the cause of the dispossessed and disinherited4 ,if the proletariat wins in its war against capitalism1 these outcast writers will become leading men of letters4 ,on the other hand1 if the proletariat loses1 they will remain #8propagandists1' and #8tub-thumpers1' and #8buzzards1' and #8muckrakers'--you recognize those terms40 ,yes1 ,mrs4 ,ogi admits that she recognizes them2 and he continues3 8,i have given the workers an honest book1 a sound book1 from the point of view of their hopes and needs4 ,i say to them3 ,why should you read the books of your enemies1 those who make their glory and their greatness out of your misery and humiliation8 ,why should you walk into the traps that are set for you8 ,life is very cruel1 but assuredly this is the most cruel thing in your fate--that you should admire those actions which crush you1 those tastes which spurn you1 those standards which have as their beginning and end your enslavement and degradation40 8,none but workers are to see this book80 asks ,mrs4 ,ogi4 8,i use the word in its revolutionary sense1 the strict scientific sense of those who do the useful and necessary labor1 whether of hand or brain4 ,i am pleading especially with the young brain-workers1 the intellectuals4 ,for the hand-worker is a slave by compulsion1 but the young thinker1 the student1 has the ancient choice of ,hercules1 between virtue and vice4 ,he may sell himself to the exploiters1 he may take the dress-suit bribe1 the motor-cars and the #8hooch' parties1 and the beautiful1 soft-skinned1 hard-souled women2 or he may heed my plea1 and steel his soul1 and go back to the garret which is the cradle of the arts1 back to the ancient and honorable occupation of cultivating literature upon a little oatmeal4 8,to this young intellectual1 hesitating at the parting of ways1 ,i say3 ,comrade1 this world of organized gambling and predation in which we live seems powerful and permanent1 but it is an evil dream of but a few more years2 the seeds of its own destruction are sprouting in its heart4 ,i am not referring to its moral failure1 the fact that it thwarts the most fundamental of human cravings1 for justice and for freedom2 ,i mean in the bare material sense--it fails to employ its own workers1 it makes misery out of its own plenty1 and war and destruction of its abounding prosperity4 ,it is as certain to fall as a pyramid standing on its tip2 and when it falls1 what is left but the workers8 ,what other force is there1 having solidarity1 the sense of brotherhood1 the ideal of service1 of useful labor1 as against the buying and selling and exploiting1 the robbing1 killing and enslaving which is capitalism8 8,this great new force is shaping itself in our world1 preparing for the making of the future4 ,and shall this new life not have an art8 ,shall men not thrill to this vision1 and rouse others to make it real8 ,here lies your task1 young comrade2 here is your future--and not the timid service of convention1 the million-times-over repetition of ancient lies1 the endless copying of copies of folly and cruelty and greed4 ,the artists of our time are like men hypnotized1 repeating over and over a dreary formula of futility4 ,and ,i say3 ,break this evil spell1 young comrade2 go out and meet the new dawning life1 take your part in the battle1 and put it into new art2 do this service for a new public1 which you yourselves will make4 ,that is the message of this book1 the last word ,i have to say3 that your creative gift shall not be content to make art works1 but shall at the same time make a world2 shall make new souls1 moved by a new ideal of fellowship1 a new impulse of love1 and faith--and not merely hope1 but determination4 8,that is what this book is about10 says ,ogi2 8and maybe not many will get me1 but a few will1 and they will be the ones ,i am after40 ,mrs4 ,ogi comes to him and puts her arms about him1 trembling a little4 8,yes1 of course10 she says2 8and ,i'm glad you wrote it1 in spite of all my terrors40 8,ah1 now60 says ,ogi1 smiling4 8,we ought to have a picture of this6 ,a happy ending1 in the very best bourgeois style60 ,,index ,roman numerals refer to chapters1 ,arabic numerals to pages ,adams1 ,francis1 #ceb ,adams1 ,f4 ,p41 #fd schylus1 #di1 #id1 #ahj ,alcibiades1 ,,xvii ,alexander1 #da ,amos1 #ca ,anderson1 #bci1 #bfj1 #bgj ,archimedes1 #da ,ariosto1 #hi ,aristophanes1 ,,xx1 #abi1 #baj ,aristotle1 #aag ,arnold1 #dg1 #aha1 ,,lxxi1 #cbc1 #cgi ,assisi1 #gd ,austen1 ,,lii ,babbitt1 #ach1 ,,xlv ,bacon1 #ie ,bakunin1 #bab ,balzac1 ,,lx ,barrett1 #bbe ,baudelaire1 #cjb ,beer1 #cdh ,beers1 #ahf ,beethoven1 ,l ,bellamy1 #bch1 #ceb ,bennett1 #ahi ,bernhardi1 #bic ,bernhardt1 #abc ,besant1 #ceb ,bierce1 ,,cii ,blake1 #bjb ,boccaccio1 ,,xxviii ,borgia1 #hj ,brandes1 #bid ,brawne1 #ahg ,brooks1 #cbg ,brown1 ,bishop1 #gd ,brown1 ,j4 ,g41 #ab ,browning1 #hj1 ,,lxx ,buchanan1 #ceb ,buddha1 #ci ,bunyan1 ,,xxxviii1 #bci1 #bhc ,burbank1 #bgi ,burns1 ,,xlix1 #bdd1 #cci ,byron1 ,,lvii1 #aha1 #bjc1 #bbh1 #bda1 #bea1 #cja ,cade1 #ajc ,calas1 #acc ,carlyle1 #ac1 #gg1 ,,lxviii1 #caa1 #ccg ,caroline1 #ahj ,cartier1 #ie ,cervantes1 ,,xxxii ,chambers1 #aad1 #cef ,charles ,i1 #ajf ,charles ,x1 #aie ,clemens1 ,c1 #ia1 #ccd1 #cdj1 #cdh1 #cei1 #cfi ,cleon1 #ec ,coleridge1 ,,liv1 #bea ,collier1 #aae ,collins1 #bj ,comstock1 #aje ,congreve1 #aad ,conrad1 ,,cix ,coolidge1 #ada1 #cbg ,corneille1 ,,xl1 #caf ,crane1 ,,civ ,cromwell1 #aac1 #agc1 #aie ,dana1 #cb1 #ec ,dante1 ,,xxix ,davidson1 #ceb ,davis1 ,,ciii ,dawes1 #eg ,day1 #cdf ,debs1 #cfa de ,mille1 #aad de ,young1 #cdj ,dickens1 ,,lxxii1 #bcf1 #bgg ,diderot1 #acf ,dobson1 #fd ,dor1 #ab ,dostoievski1 ,,lxxxiv-,v ,douglas1 #cje ,dreiser1 #bgj ,dreyfus1 #bhb1 #cha ,dryden1 ,,xxxix1 #adc ,eddy1 #bda ,edison1 #da ,edward1 #abc ,elijah1 #ca ,eliot1 #bce ,emerson1 #eh1 #bag1 #bcc1 ,,lxxv1 #bec ,euripedes1 #ea1 #eb1 #ed ,fielding1 ,,xlviii ,flaubert1 ,,lxv1 #bgf ,fox1 #gd ,france1 ,,cx ,frederick1 #acc1 #adg1 #bai ,galileo1 #ajf1 #aag ,gandhi1 #bgd ,garrison1 #bde ,gautier1 #ahg1 #aif1 ,,lxii1 #bjh ,george ,,iv1 #afe1 #ahj ,gibbon1 #aga ,gifford1 #aga ,gilder1 #cdg ,gladstone1 #dh1 #cbc ,glyn1 #aad ,goethe1 #ci1 #aec1 ,,li1 #ahc ,gogol1 ,,lxxxii1 #bfc ,goncourt1 ,,lxxxvii ,gorki1 #bei1 #bgc1 #cbh1 #cce1 #cci ,gosse1 #cja1 #cai ,gracchus1 #ei ,grant1 #ccj ,gronlund1 #cci ,haldeman-,julius1 #aij ,hale1 #cee ,hallam1 #bbc ,hamilton1 #agb ,hanska1 #aid ,hardie1 #agc ,harper1 #cce-f ,harris1 #ih1 #ii1 ,,xcv ,harvey1 #cca ,hastings1 #afb ,hawthorne1 ,,lxxviii1 #cbb ,hazlitt1 #ahe ,hearn1 #ahg1 #ccf ,heine1 #fd1 ,,lxvi ,henley1 #ad ,henry1 ,,cvii1 #cdi1 #cge ,herriot1 #bhb ,hichens1 #cjc ,hippocrates1 #da ,hohenzollern1 #bai ,homer1 ,,xviii1 #fj ,horace1 ,,xxiv ,howells1 ,,ci1 #cbh1 #cdh ,hughes1 #bh1 #chc ,hugo1 #bjj1 #bjc1 #baf1 ,,lxi1 #bhj1 #bif1 #bih ,hunt1 #ahd1 #ahe1 #ahf ,ibsen1 ,,xc1 #cci ,ingersoll1 #cca ,irwin1 #ec ,isaiah1 #cj ,jackson1 #bdf ,james1 ,h41 #ac1 #gc1 #hb1 #aic1 #bfd1 ,,xcviii1 #cgi ,james1 ,w41 #cah ,jaurs1 #cha ,jennings1 #cei-fj1 #cfb ,jeremiah1 #cj ,jesus1 #ch1 #ci1 #beg1 #bic ,joan1 #ajb ,john1 #ca ,johnson1 #cd ,juvenal1 ,,xxiv ,keats1 ,,lix1 #ahj1 #bde ,kingsley1 #ceb ,kipling1 #ad1 #abi ,kubla ,khan1 #afh ,lamb1 #ahe ,lanier1 #bed ,lassalle1 #ceb ,leacock1 #ec ,lee1 #bcb ,lee-,higginson1 #ada ,lenin1 #cf ,lewes1 #ci1 #bce ,lewis1 #bjf ,lincoln1 #bef ,lloyd-,george1 #cgg ,lockhart1 #ahf ,london1 ,,cviii1 #cch1 #cdi1 #cea ,longfellow1 ,,lxxvi ,louis ,,xiv1 ,,xli ,louis ,,xviii1 #aie ,louis ,napoleon1 #aig1 #bad ,louis-,philippe1 #aif l',ouverture1 #aid ,ludwig1 #bae1 #bid ,luther1 #gd1 #hc ,mackail1 #dc ,mcenas1 #fd ,marie ,antoinette1 #aef1 #agb ,marlowe1 #if ,martin1 ,,xv ,marx1 #bid ,maupassant1 ,,lxxxix1 #bhf1 #cdj1 #cfa ,medici1 #hf1 #abj ,mencken1 #aje ,meredith1 ,,xcvii1 #cge ,micah1 #ca ,michelangelo1 ,,xxxi1 #aej ,millet1 #bjf ,milton1 #ad1 ,,xxxvii1 #aeb1 #agc1 #ahc1 #ahi1 #aih1 #bcd1 #bci1 #bdb1 #cje ,moliere1 ,,xlii1 #bfa ,moore1 ,g41 #cjh ,moore1 ,t41 #aha ,mordell1 #gh1 #ajh1 #aaa ,more1 ,p4 ,e41 #bbh1 #bbi1 #cgi ,more1 ,sir ,t41 #ceb ,morgan1 #adj1 #ada1 #bgj1 #bic1 #cej-a ,morrell1 #cea ,morris1 ,,lxxiv ,mozart1 #aea ,murray1 #eg ,musset1 ,,lxiii1 #cjb ,napoleon1 #aeb1 #aef1 #aeg1 #afc1 #bbb ,nelson1 #agb ,newton1 #aca1 #agc1 #bed ,nicholas1 #bfi ,nietzsche1 #ac1 ,,xcii1 #beg ,norris1 ,,cv ,palgrave1 #aji1 #aij ,palmer1 #gi1 #ada1 #afc ,pasteur1 #da ,patrick1 #bj ,pericles1 #da ,phelps1 #bfh1 ,,lxxxv ,phillips1 ,,cvi1 #cdi ,pindar1 #ej ,plato1 #ac1 #ceb ,plimsoll1 #cgf ,plutarch1 #aeb ,poe1 ,,lxxix1 #cjb1 #bec ,pope1 #aca ,porter1 ,,cvii1 #cdi1 #cge ,pushkin1 #bfj1 #bfa ,queensbury1 #cje ,rabelais1 #chc ,racine1 ,,xli1 #aie1 #aii ,raphael1 ,,xxx1 #bjj ,rasputin1 #bfh1 #bfi ,reade1 #ceb ,reed1 #cg1 #ch ,renan1 #chc ,richardson1 ,,xlvii1 #bgg ,richelieu1 #aag ,robespierre1 #ada ,rockefeller1 #aji ,roeckel1 #bab ,rogers1 #cca ,roland1 #hh ,roosevelt1 #ced ,rossetti1 #ahh ,rousseau1 #aag1 #aah1 ,,xliv1 ,,xlv1 #aee1 #bga1 #bia ,ruskin1 #agc1 #bcf1 #bch1 #cji1 #ceb ,russell1 #cfb ,saintsbury1 #aac1 #aae1 #bii ,sand1 #bjc1 ,,lxiv1 #bbe ,savonarola1 #gd1 #hd ,schiller1 #aeh ,schopenhauer1 #baf ,scott1 ,,liii1 #aga1 #aha1 #ahf1 #ahh1 #bdg1 #bdi ,shakespeare1 #ci1 #dh1 ,,xxxiii-,,vi1 #abi1 #aca1 #aea1 #ahc1 #aie1 #bda ,shaw1 #ag1 #fc1 #ic1 #baa1 #bae1 #bhg1 #bib1 #cci ,shelley1 #agf1 #agg1 ,,lviii1 #ahe1 #aih ,sherman1 #bbh ,sinclair1 #ajg1 #cbh1 #cce1 #cde1 #cdg1 #cec1 #cfc-f1 #cgb ,socrates1 #da1 #ed ,sophocles1 #ea ,southey1 #afc1 #afg1 ,,lv1 #agg ,spencer1 #bij ,squires1 #aha ,sterling1 #ic1 #id1 #cch-i1 #cda ,stowe1 #agf1 #ceb ,strauss1 #cjd ,strindberg1 ,,xci1 #bia1 #bid ,swanson1 #bh1 #chc ,swift1 #aca1 ,,xlvi ,swinburne1 #afh1 ,,xciv ,symonds1 #big ,taft1 #bfi ,tennyson1 ,,lxix1 #aji1 #ahh1 #bag1 #bgi1 #cja1 #cdf ,thackeray1 ,,lxxiii1 #aia ,tolstoi1 #ace1 #baa1 ,,lxxxvi1 #beg1 #bgi1 #bhc1 #ccb1 #cce1 #cci ,turgenev1 ,,lxxxiii1 #bga ,twain1 #ia1 ,c1 #ccd1 #cdj1 #cdh1 #cei1 #cfi ,untermeyer1 #fd van ,eeden1 #bfe ,vasari1 #hc ,verestchagin1 #ab ,verhaeren1 ,,xciii ,verlaine1 #cjb ,victoria1 #agd1 #bbj1 #bbd1 #caf ,virgil1 ,,xxiii1 #gi ,voltaire1 ,,xliii1 #aie1 #bji1 #bdj1 #bhb1 #chc von ,suttner1 #ceb ,wagner1 ,,lxvii1 #bid ,ward1 ,,xcix ,washington1 #da1 #chd ,watts-,dunton1 #bii ,weber1 #aeb ,webster1 #bdf ,wells1 #cag ,westbrook1 #ahb ,whistler1 #ahg1 ,,xcvi1 #bej ,whiteing1 #ceb ,whitman1 ,,lxxx1 #bge1 #bhb1 #big ,whittier1 ,,lxxvii1 #bec ,wilde1 ,,xcv1 #cdf ,witte1 #cca ,wood1 #aaj ,wordsworth1 ,,lvi1 #aha1 #ahb ,wycherley1 #aad ,zola1 ,,lxxxviii1 #bif1 #cdi1 #cha ,w4 ,b4 ,c4 99 99 99 99 99 ,who ,owns the ,press1 and ,why8 ,when you read your daily paper1 are you reading facts or propaganda8 ,and whose propaganda8 ,who furnishes the raw material for your thoughts about life8 ,is it honest material8 ,no man can ask more important questions than these2 and here for the first time the questions are answered in a book4 ,,the ,,brass ,,check ,a ,study of ,american ,journalism ,by ,,upton ,,sinclair ,read the record of this book to ,august1 #aibj3 ,published in ,february1 #aibj2 first edition1 #bc1jjj paper-bound copies1 sold in two weeks4 ,second edition1 #ba1jjj paper-bound1 sold before it could be put to press4 ,third edition1 #ae1jjj and fourth edition1 #ab1jjj1 sold4 ,fifth edition1 #ae1jjj1 in press4 ,paper for sixth edition1 #aaj1jjj1 just shipped from the mill4 ,the third and fourth editions are printed on 8number one news02 the sixth will be printed on a carload of lightweight brown wrapping paper--all we could get in a hurry4 ,the first cloth edition1 #af1ejj copies1 all sold2 a carload of paper for the second edition1 #dj1jjj copies1 has just reached our printer--and so we dare to advertise6 ,ninety thousand copies of a book sold in six months--and published by the author1 with no advertising1 and only a few scattered reviews6 ,what this means is that the ,american people want to know the truth about their newspapers4 ,they have found the truth in 8,the ,brass ,check0 and they are calling for it by telegraph4 ,put these books on your counter1 and you will see1 as one doctor wrote us--8they melt away like the snow40 ,from the pastor of the ,community ,church1 ,new ,york3 8,i am writing to thank you for sending me a copy of your new book1 #8,the ,brass ,check4' ,although it arrived only a few days ago1 ,i have already read it through1 every word1 and have loaned it to one of my colleagues for reading4 ,the book is tremendous4 ,i have never read a more strongly consistent argument or one so formidably buttressed by facts4 ,you have proved your case to the handle4 ,i again take satisfaction in saluting you not only as a great novelist1 but as the ablest pamphleteer in ,america today4 ,i am already passing around the word in my church and taking orders for the book40--,john ,haynes ,holmes4 #ddj pages4 ,single copy1 paper1 #fj;c postpaid2 three copies1 #a4ej2 ten copies1 #d4ej4 ,single copy1 cloth1 #a4bj postpaid2 three copies1 #c4jj2 ten copies1 #i4jj ,address3 ,,upton ,,sinclair1 ,pasadena1 ,cal4 99 99 99 99 99 ,,the ,,goose-,,step ,a ,study of ,american ,education ,by ,upton ,sinclair ,who owns the colleges1 and why8 ,are your sons and daughters getting education1 or propaganda8 ,and whose propaganda8 ,no man can ask more important questions than these2 and here for the first time the questions are answered in a book4 ,from ,h4 ,l4 ,,mencken3 8#8,the ,goose-,step' came in at last yesterday afternoon1 and ,i fell on it last night4 ,my very sincere congratulations4 ,i have read on and on with constant joy in the adept marshalling of facts1 the shrewd presentation of personalities1 the lively and incessant humor4 ,it is not only a fine piece of writing2 it is also a sound piece of research4 ,it presents a devastating1 but1 ,i believe1 thoroughly fair and accurate picture of the ,american universities today4 ,the faults of #8,the ,brass ,check' and #8,the ,profits of ,religion' are not in it4 ,it is enormously more judicial and convincing than either of those books4 ,you are here complaining of nothing4 ,you simply offer the bald and horrible facts--but with liveliness1 shrewdness1 good humor4 ,an appalling picture of a moral and mental debasement6 ,let every ,american read it and ponder it60 ,a few questions considered in 8,the ,goose-,step03 ,do you know the extent to which the interlocking directors of railroads and steel and oil and coal and credit in the ,united ,states are also the interlocking trustees of ,american 8higher0 education8 ,do you think that our colleges and universities should be modeled on the lines of our government1 or on the lines of our department-stores8 ,do you know that eighty-five percent of college and university professors are dissatisfied with being managed by floor-walkers8 ,do you know for how many different actions and opinions a professor may lose his job8 ,do you know how many professors have to do their own laundry8 ,do you know why ,american college presidents with few exceptions are men who do not tell the truth8 ,do you know to what extent 8social position0 takes precedence over scholarship in ,american academic life8 ,do you know to what extent our education has become a by-product of gladiatorial combats8 ,a few of the institutions dealt with3 ,the ,university of the ,house of ,morgan2 ,the ,university of ,lee-,higginson2 ,the ,university of ,u4 ,g4 ,i42 ,the ,tiger's ,lair2 ,the ,bull-dog's ,den2 ,the ,university of the ,black ,hand2 ,the ,university of the ,lumber ,trust2 ,the ,university of the ,chimes2 ,the ,universities of the ,anaconda2 ,the ,university of the ,latter ,day ,saints2 ,the ,mining ,camp ,university2 ,the ,colleges of the ,smelter ,trust2 ,the ,university of ,wheat2 ,the ,university of the ,ore ,trust2 ,the ,university of ,standard ,oil2 ,the ,university of ,judge ,gary2 ,the ,university of the ,grand ,duchess2 ,the ,university of ,automobiles2 ,the ,university of the ,steel ,trust2 ,the ,university of ,heaven2 ,the ,university of ,jabbergrab4 #ejj pages1 cloth #b4jj1 paper #a4jj1 postpaid4 ,,upton ,,sinclair1 ,,pasadena1 ,,california 99 99 99 99 99 ,typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber3 series of chonicle series of chronicle pg #aja here we seen ,sensibility here we see ,sensibility pg #afj be became poet laureate he became poet laureate pg #agc ,two laters later his ,two years later his pg #agi a crime aganist a crime against pg #ahb the old god1 see too late the old god1 sees too late pg #bad enlightment ought to help them enlightenment ought to help them pg #bfd worse criminals that he worse criminals than he pg #bfg most efficient sytem most efficient system pg #bfi out of thir minds out of their minds pg #bhg be became the prophet he became the prophet pg #bib to feel wraranted to feel warranted pg #cai long and successfuly long and successfully pg #cdh live a single genration live a single generation pg #cea him to suceed him to succeed pg #ced presents a devasting presents a devastating ad page