,,affirmations4 ,,affirmations ,,by ,,havelock ,,ellis ,,london3 ,,walter ,,scott1 ,,limited ,,paternoster ,,square #ahih ,,preface4 ,,there are at least two ways of looking at books and at the personalities books express4 ,in its chief but rarer aspect literature is the medium of art1 and as such can raise no ethical problems4 ,whatever morality or immorality art may hold is quiescent1 or lifted into an atmosphere of radiant immortality where questioning is irrelevant4 ,of the literature that is all art we need not even speak1 unless by chance we too approach it as artists1 trying to grasp it by imaginative insight4 ,in literature1 as elsewhere1 art should only be approached as we would approach ,paradise1 for the sake of its joy4 ,it would be well1 indeed1 if we could destroy or forget all that has ever been written about the world's great books1 even if it were once worth while to write those books about books4 ,how happy1 for instance1 the world might be if there were no literature about the ,bible1 if ,augustine and ,aquinas and ,calvin and thousands of smaller men had not danced on it so long1 stamping every page of it into mire1 that now the vision of a single line1 in its simple sense1 is almost an effort of inspiration4 ,all my life long ,i have been casting away the knowledge ,i have gained from books about literature1 and from opinions about life1 and coming to literature itself or to life itself1 a slow and painful progress towards that ,heaven of knowledge where a child is king4 ,but there is another kind of literature1 a literature which is not all art--the literature of life4 ,literature differs from design or music by being closer to life1 by being fundamentally not an art at all1 but merely the development of ordinary speech1 only rising at intervals into the region of art4 ,it is so close to life that largely it comes before us much as the actual facts of life come before us4 ,so that while we were best silent about the literature of art1 sanctified by time and the reverence of many men1 we cannot question too keenly the literature of life4 ,in this book ,i deal with questions of life as they are expressed in literature1 or as they are suggested by literature4 ,throughout ,i am discussing morality as revealed or disguised by literature4 ,i may not care1 indeed1 to pervert my subjects in order to emphasise my opinions1 but ,i frankly take my subjects chiefly on those sides which suit my own pleasure1 and ,i select them solely because they do that so well4 ,i use them as the ancient device of the stalking-horse was used1 to creep up more closely to the game that my soul loves best4 ,so far as possible ,i dwell most on those aspects of my subjects which are most questionable4 ,it was once brought against me that ,i had a predilection for such aspects4 ,assuredly it is so4 ,if a subject is not questionable it seems to me a waste of time to discuss it4 ,the great facts of the world are not questionable2 they are there for us to enjoy1 or to suffer1 in silence1 not to talk about4 ,our best energies should be spent in attacking and settling questionable things that so we may enlarge the sphere of the unquestionable--the sphere of real life--and be ready to meet new questions as they arise4 ,it is only by dealing with the questionable aspects of the world that criticism of life can ever have any saving virtue for us4 ,it is waste of life to use literature for pawing over the unquestionable4 ,even a healthy dog1 having once ascertained the essential virtue of a bone1 contentedly eats it1 or buries it4 ,and yet1 it may well be1 there is a time for affirming the simple eternal facts of life1 a time1 even1 when those simple eternal facts have drifted so far from us that we count them also questionable4 ,the present moment has seemed to me a fitting one to set a few such affirmations in order4 ,the century now nearly over has performed many dirty and laborious tasks2 it has had to organise its own unwieldiness1 to cleanse its ,augean stables of the filth it has itself deposited1 to pull down the buildings it has itself erected4 ,when we witness such work carried out--blunderingly1 it may be1 but yet1 we thought1 humbly--we may well point out what splendid fellows these modest1 begrimed toilers really were1 what useful and noble work they were engaged in1 how large a promise they bear for the future4 ,that was my own point of view4 ,but the case is altered when these yet unwashed toilers rise up around us in half-intoxicated jubilation over the triumphs of their own little epoch1 well assured that there never was such an age or such a race since the world began4 ,then we may well pause4 ,it is time to recall the simple eternal facts of life4 ,it is time to affirm the existence of those verities which are wrought into our very structure everywhere and always1 and in the face of which the paltry triumphs of an 8era0 fall back into insignificance4 ,yet every man must make his own affirmations4 ,the great questions of life are immortal1 only because no one can answer them for his fellows4 ,i claim no general validity for my affirmations4 ,it has been well said that certain books possess a value that is in the ratio of the spiritual vigour of those who use them1 acting as a tonic to the strong1 still further dissolving and enfeebling the weakness of the weak4 ,it would be presumptious to claim any potent and peculiar energy for this book2 but the observation is one which a reader may do well always to bear in mind4 ,the final value of any book is not in the beliefs which it may give us or take away from us1 but in its power to reveal to us our own real selves4 ,if ,i can stimulate any one in the search for his own proper affirmations1 he and ,i may well rest content4 ,he is welcome to cast aside mine as the idle conclusions of a dreamer lying in the sunshine4 ,our own affirmations are always the best4 ,let us but be sure that they are our own1 that they have grown up slowly and quietly1 fed with the strength of our own blood and brain4 ,only with the help of such affirmations can we find a staff to comfort us through the valley of life4 ,it is only when they utter affirmations1 one has said1 that the wands of the angels blossom4 ,h4 ,e4 ,august #ahig4 ,,contents4 ,,page ,,nietzsche #a ,,casanova #hf ,,zola #aca ,,huysmans #aeh ,,st4 ,,francis ,,and ,,others #bab ,,affirmations4 ,,nietzsche4 ,,for some years the name of ,friedrich ,nietzsche has been the war-cry of opposing factions in ,germany4 ,it is not easy to take up a ,german periodical without finding some trace of the passionate admiration or denunciation which this man has called forth4 ,if we turn to ,scandinavia or to ,france1 whither his fame and his work are also penetrating1 we find that the same results have followed4 ,and we may expect a similar outburst in ,england now that the translation of his works has at last begun4 ,at present1 however1 ,i know of no attempt to deal with ,nietzsche from the ,british point of view1 and that is my excuse for trying to define his personality and influence4#a ,i do not come forward as the champion of ,nietzschianism or of ,anti-,nietzschianism4 ,it appears to me that any human individuality that has strongly aroused the love and hatred of men must be far too complex for absolute condemnation or absolute approval4 ,apart from praise or blame1 which seem here alike impertinent1 ,nietzsche is without doubt an extraordinarily interesting figure4 ,he is the modern incarnation of that image of intellectual pride which ,marlowe created in ,faustus4 ,a man who has certainly stood at the finest summit of modern culture1 who has thence made the most determined effort ever made to destroy modern morals1 and who now leads a life as near to death as any life outside the grave can be1 must needs be a tragic figure4 ,it is a figure full of significance1 for it represents one of the greatest spiritual forces which have appeared since ,goethe1 full of interest also to the psychologist1 and surely not without its pathos1 perhaps its horror1 for the man in the street4 ,i4 ,it has only lately become possible to study ,nietzsche's life-history4 ,for a considerable period the ,nietzsche-,archiv at ,naumburg and ,weimar has been accumulating copious materials which have now been utilised by ,nietzsche's sister1 ,elizabeth ,frster-,nietzsche1 in the production of an authoritative biography4 ,this sister is herself a remarkable person2 for many years she lived in close association with her brother1 so that she was supposed1 though without reason1 to have exerted an influence over his thought2 then she married ,dr4 ,frster1 the founder of the ,new ,germany colony in ,paraguay2 on his death she returned home to write the history of the colony1 and has since devoted herself to the care of her brother and his fame4 ,only the first two volumes of the ,leben ,nietzsche's have yet appeared1 but they enable us to trace his development to his departure from ,basel1 and throw light on his whole career4 ,nietzsche belonged1 according to the ancestral tradition 7though the name1 ,i am told1 is a common one in ,wendish ,silesia71 to a noble ,polish family called ,nietzky1 who on account of strong ,protestant convictions abandoned their country and their title during the eighteenth century and settled in ,germany4 ,notwithstanding the large amount of ,german blood in his veins1 he always regarded himself as essentially a ,pole4 ,the ,poles seemed to him the best endowed and most knightly of ,sclavonic peoples1 and he once remarked that it was only by virtue of a strong mixture of ,sclavonic blood that the ,germans entered the ranks of gifted nations4 ,he termed the ,polish ,chopin the deliverer of music from ,german heaviness and stupidity1 and when he speaks of another ,pole1 ,copernicus1 who reversed the judgment of the whole world1 one may divine a reference to what in later years ,nietzsche regarded as his own mission4 ,in adult life ,nietzsche's keen and strongly marked features were distinctly ,polish1 and when abroad he was frequently greeted by ,poles as a fellow-countryman2 at ,sorrento1 where he once spent a winter1 the country people called him ,il ,polacco4 ,like ,emerson 7to whose writings he was strongly attracted throughout life7 and many another strenuous philosophic revolutionary1 ,nietzsche came of a long race of ,christian ministers4 ,on both sides his ancestors were preachers1 and from first to last the preacher's fervour was in his own blood4 ,the eldest of three children 7of whom one died in infancy71 ,friedrich ,nietzsche was born in #ahdd at ,rcken1 near ,ltzen1 in ,saxony4 ,his father--who shortly after his son's birth fell down the parsonage steps1 injuring his head so severely that he died within twelve months--is described as a man of noble and poetic nature1 with a special talent for music1 inherited by his son2 though once described by his son as 8a tender1 lovable1 morbid man10 he belonged to a large and very healthy family1 who mostly lived to an extreme old age1 preserving their mental and physical vigour to the last4 ,the ,nietzsches were a proud1 sincere folk1 very clannish1 looking askance at all who were not ,nietzsches4 ,nietzsche's mother1 said to be a charming woman and possessed of much physical vigour1 was again a clergyman's daughter4 ,the ,oehler family1 to which she belonged1 was also very large1 very healthy1 and very long-lived2 she was only eighteen at her son's birth1 and is still alive to care for him in his complete mental decay4 ,i note these facts1 which are given with much precision and detail in the biography1 because they certainly help us to understand ,nietzsche4 ,it is evident that he is no frail hectic flame of a degenerating race4 ,there seems to be no trace of insanity or nervous disorder at any point in the family history1 as far back as it is possible to go4 ,on the contrary1 he belonged to extremely vigorous stocks1 possessing unusual moral and physical force1 people of 8character40 ,a similar condition of things is not seldom found in the history of genius4 ,in such a case the machine is1 as it were1 too highly charged with inherited energy1 and works at a pressure which ultimately brings it to perdition4 ,all genius must work without rest1 it cannot do otherwise2 only the most happily constituted genius works without haste4 ,the sister's account of the children's early life is a very charming part of this record1 and one which in the nature of things rarely finds place in a biography4 ,she describes her first memories of the boy's pretty face1 his long fair hair1 and large1 dark1 serious eyes4 ,he could not speak until he was nearly three years old1 but at four he began to read and write4 ,he was a quiet1 rather obstinate child1 with fits of passion which he learnt to control at a very early age2 his self-control became so great that1 as a boy1 on more than one occasion he deliberately burnt his hand1 to show that ,mucius ,scvola's act was but a trifling matter4 ,the widowed mother went with her children to settle at ,naumburg on the ,saale with her husband's mother1 a woman of fine character with views of her own1 one of which was that children of all classes should first be brought up together4 ,little ,fritz was therefore sent to the town school1 but the experiment was not altogether successful4 ,he was a serious child1 fond of solitude1 and was called 8the little parson0 by his comrades4 8,the fundamental note of his disposition10 writes a schoolfellow in after-life1 8was a certain melancholy which expressed itself in his whole being40 ,he avoided his fellows and sought beautiful scenery1 as he continued to do throughout life4 ,at the same time he was a well-developed1 vigorous boy1 who loved games of various kinds1 especially those of his own invention4 ,but although the children lived to the full the fantastic life of childhood1 the sister regretfully confesses that they remained models of propriety4 ,fritz was 8a very pious child2 he thought much about religious matters1 and was always concerned to put his thoughts into practice40 ,it is curious that1 notwithstanding his instinctive sympathy with the ,greek spirit and his philological aptitudes1 he found ,greek specially difficult to learn4 ,at the age of ten appeared his taste for verse-making1 and also for music1 and he soon began to show that inherited gift for improvisation by which he was always able to hold his audience spellbound4 ,even as a boy the future moralist made a deep impression on those who knew him1 and he reminded one person of the youthful ,jesus in the ,temple4 8,we ,nietzsches hate lies10 an aunt was accustomed to say2 in ,friedrich sincerity was a very deep-rooted trait1 and he exercised an involuntary educational influence on those who came near him4 ,in #aheh a place was found for him at ,pforta1 a remarkable school of almost military discipline4 ,here many of the lines of his future activity were definitely laid down4 ,at an even earlier date1 excited by the influence of ,humboldt1 he had been fascinated by the ideal of universal culture1 and at ,pforta his intellectual energies began to expand4 ,here also1 in #ahei1 when a pianoforte edition of ,tristan was first published1 ,nietzsche became an enthusiastic ,wagnerian1 and even to the last ,tristan remained for him 8music par excellence40 ,here1 too1 he began those philological studies which led some years later to a professorship4 ,he turned to philology1 however1 as he himself recognised1 because of the need he felt to anchor himself to some cool logical study which would not grip his heart like the restless and exciting artistic instincts which had hitherto chiefly moved him4 ,during the latter part of his stay at this very strenuous educational establishment young ,nietzsche was a less brilliant pupil than during the earlier part4 ,his own individuality was silently growing beneath the disciplinary pressure which would have dwarfed a less vigorous individuality4 ,his philosophic aptitudes began to develop and take form2 he wished also to devote himself to music2 and he pined at the confinement1 longing for the forest and the woodman's axe4 ,it was the beginning of a long struggle between the impulses of his own self-centred nature and the duties imposed from without1 by the school1 the university1 and1 later1 his professorship2 he always strove to broaden and deepen these duties to the scope of his own nature1 but the struggle remained4 ,it was the immediate result of this double strain that1 during #ahfb1 strong and healthy as the youth appeared1 he began to suffer from headaches and eye-troubles1 cured by temporary removal from the school4 ,he remained extremely short-sighted1 and it was only by an absurd error in the routine examination that1 some years later1 he was passed for military service in the artillery4 ,in the following year1 #ahfc1 ,nietzsche met a schoolfellow's sister1 an ethereal little ,berlin girl1 who for a while appealed to 8the large1 broad-shouldered1 shy1 rather solemn and stiff youth40 ,to this early experience1 which never went beyond poetic ,schwrmerei1 his sister is inclined to trace the origin of ,nietzsche's view of women as very fragile1 tender little buds4 ,the experience is also interesting because it appears to stand alone in his life4 ,we strike here on an organic abnormality in this congenital philosopher4 ,nietzsche's attitude was not the crude misogyny of ,schopenhauer1 who knew women chiefly as women of the streets4 ,nietzsche knew many of the finest women of his time1 and he sometimes speaks with insight and sympathy of the world as it appears to women2 but there was clearly nothing in him to answer to any appeal to passion1 and his attitude is well summed up in an aphorism of his own ,zarathustra3 8,it is better to fall into the hands of a murderer than into the dreams of an ardent woman40 8,all his life long10 his sister writes1 8my brother remained completely apart from either great passion or vulgar pleasure4 ,his whole passion lay in the world of knowledge2 only very temperate emotions remained over for anything else4 ,in later life he was grieved that he had never attained to amour passion1 and that every inclination to a feminine personality quickly changed to a tender friendship1 however fascinatingly pretty the fair one might be40 ,he would expend much sympathy on unhappy lovers1 yet he would shake his head1 saying to himself or others3 8,and all that over a little girl60 ,young ,nietzsche left ,pforta1 in #ahfc1 with the most various and incompatible scientific tastes and interests 7always excepting in mathematics1 for which he never possessed any aptitude71 but1 as he himself remarked1 none that would fit him for any career4 ,one point in regard to the termination of his school-life is noteworthy3 he chose ,theognis as the subject of his valedictory dissertation4 ,his meditations on this moralist and aristocrat1 so contemptuous of popular rule1 may have served as the starting-point of some of his own later views on ,greek culture4 ,in #ahfd he became a student at ,bonn1 and the year that followed was of special import in his inner development2 he finally threw off the beliefs of his early youth2 he discovered his keen critical faculty2 and self-contained independence became a visible mark of his character1 though always disguised by amiable and courteous manners4 ,at ,bonn his life seems to have been fairly happy1 though he was by no means a typical ,german student4 ,he spent much money1 but it was chiefly on his artistic tastes--music and the theatre--or on little tours4 ,no one could spend less on eating and drinking2 like ,goethe and like ,heine1 he had no love for tobacco or for beer1 and he was repelled by the thick1 beery good-humour of the ,german student4 ,people who drink beer and smoke pipes every evening1 he always held1 were incapable of understanding his philosophy2 for they could not possibly possess the clarity of mind needed to grasp any delicate or complex intellectual problem4 ,he returned home from ,bonn 8a picture of health and strength1 broad-shouldered1 brown1 with rather fair thick hair1 and exactly the same height as ,goethe20 and then went to continue his studies at ,leipzig4 ,notwithstanding the youth's efforts to subdue his emotional and sthetic restlessness by cool and hard work1 he was clearly tortured by the effort to find a philosophic home for himself in the world4 ,this effort absorbed him all day long1 frequently nearly all the night4 ,at this time he chanced to take up on a bookstall a totally unknown work1 entitled ,der ,welt als ,wille und ,vorstellung2 in obedience to an unusual impulse he bought the book without consideration1 and from that moment began an acquaintance with ,schopenhauer which for many years exerted a deep influence on his life4 ,at that time1 probably1 he could have had no better guide into paths of peace2 but even as a student he was a keen critic of ,schopenhauer's system1 valuing him chiefly as1 in opposition to ,kant1 8the philosopher of a re-awakened classical period1 a ,germanised ,hellenism40 ,schumann's music and long solitary walks aided in the work of recuperation4 ,a year or two later ,nietzsche met the other great god who shared with ,schopenhauer his early worship4 8,i cannot bring my heart to any degree of critical coolness before this music10 he wrote1 in #ahfh1 after listening to the overture to the ,meistersinger2 8every fibre and nerve in me thrills2 it is a long time since ,i have been so carried away40 ,i quote these words1 for we shall1 ,i think1 find later that they have their significance4 ,a few weeks afterwards he was invited to meet the master1 and thus began a relationship that for ,nietzsche was fateful4 ,meanwhile his philological studies were bringing him distinction4 ,a lecture on ,theognis was pronounced by ,ritschl to be the best work by a student of ,nietzsche's standing that he had ever met with4 ,then followed investigations into the sources of ,suidas1 a lengthy examination ,de fontibus ,diogenis ,laertii1 and palographic studies in connection with ,terence1 ,statius1 and ,orosius4 ,he was now also consciously perfecting his ,german style1 treating language1 he remarks1 as a musical instrument on which one must be able to improvise1 as well as play what is merely learnt by heart4 ,in #ahfi1 when only in his twenty-sixth year1 and before he had taken his doctor's degree1 he accepted the chair of classical philology at ,basel4 ,he was certainly1 as he himself said1 not a born philologist4 ,he had devoted himself to philology--,i wish to insist on this significant point--as a sedative and tonic to his restless energy2 in this he was doubtless wise1 though his sister seems to suggest that he thereby increased his mental strain4 ,but he had no real vocation for philology1 and it is curious that when the ,basel chair was offered to him he was proposing to himself to throw aside philology for chemistry4 ,philologists1 he declares again and again1 are but factory hands in the service of science4 ,at the best philology is a waste of acuteness1 since it merely enables us to state facts which the study of the present would teach us much more swiftly and surely4 ,thus it was that he instinctively broadened and deepened every philological question he took up1 making it a channel for philosophy and morals4 ,with his specifically philological work we are not further concerned4 ,i have been careful to present the main facts in ,nietzsche's early development because they seem to me to throw light on the whole of his later development4 ,so far he had published nothing except in philological journals4 ,in #ahga1 after he had settled at ,basel1 appeared his first work1 an essay entitled ,die ,geburt der ,tragdie aus dem ,geiste der ,musik1 dedicated to ,wagner4 ,the conception of this essay was academic1 but in ,nietzsche's hands the origin of tragedy became merely the text for an exposition of his own philosophy of art at this period4 ,he traces two art impulses in ancient ,greece3 one1 starting in the phenomena of dreaming1 which he associates with ,apollo2 the other1 starting in the phenomena of intoxication1 associated with ,dionysus1 and through singing1 music and dithyramb leading up to the lyric4 ,the union of these1 which both imply a pessimistic view of life1 produced folksong and finally tragedy1 which is thus the outcome of ,dionysiac music fertilised by ,apollonian imagery4 ,socrates the optimist1 with his views concerning virtue as knowledge1 vice as ignorance1 and his identification of virtue with happiness1 led to the decay of tragedy and the triumph of ,alexandrian culture1 in the net of which the whole modern world is still held4 ,now1 however1 ,german music is producing a new birth of tragedy through ,wagner1 who has again united music and myth1 inaugurated an era of art culture1 and built the bridge to a new ,german heathenism4 ,this remarkable essay produced considerable controversy and much consternation among ,nietzsche's philological friends and teachers1 who resented--reasonably enough1 we may well admit--the subordination of philology to modern philosophy and art1 and could not understand the marvellous swan they had hatched4 ,a philologist ,nietzsche could never have continued1 but this book publicly put an end to any hope of academic advancement4 ,it remains characteristic of ,nietzsche's first period1 as we may call whatever he wrote before #ahgf1 in its insistence on the primary importance of sthetic as opposed to intellectual culture2 and it is characteristic of his whole work in its grip of the connection between the problems and solutions of ,hellenic times and the problems and solutions of the modern world4 ,for ,nietzsche the ,greek world was not the model of beautiful mediocrity imagined by ,winckelmann and ,goethe1 nor did it date from the era of rhetorical idealism inaugurated by ,plato4 ,the real ,hellenic world came earlier1 and the true ,hellenes were sturdy realists enamoured of life1 reverencing all its manifestations and signs1 and holding in highest honour that sexual symbol of life which ,christianity1 with its denial of life1 despises4 ,plato ,nietzsche hated2 he had wandered from all the fundamental instincts of the ,hellene4 ,his childish dialectic can only appeal1 ,nietzsche said1 to those who are ignorant of ,french masters like ,fontenelle4 ,the best cure for ,plato1 he held1 is ,thucydides1 the last of the old ,hellenes who were brave in the face of reality2 ,plato fled from reality into the ideal and was a ,christian before his time4 ,heraclitus was ,nietzsche's favourite ,greek thinker1 and he liked to point out that the moralists of the ,stoa may be traced back to the great philosopher of ,ephesus4 ,die ,geburt der ,tragdie is the prelude to all ,nietzsche's work4 ,he outgrew it1 but in one point at least it sounds a note which recurs throughout all his work4 ,he ever regarded the ,greek conception of ,dionysus as the key to the mystery of life4 ,in ,gtzendmmerung1 the last of his works1 this is still affirmed1 more distinctly than ever4 8,the fundamental ,hellenic instinct10 he there wrote1 8was first revealed in the ,dionysiac mysteries4 ,what was it the ,greek assured to himself in these mysteries8 ,eternal life1 the eternal return of life1 the future promised and consecrated in the present1 the triumphal affirmation of life over death and change1 true life or immortality through procreation1 through the mysteries of sexuality4 ,thus the sexual symbol was to the ,greeks the profoundest and most venerable symbol in the whole range of ancient piety4 ,every individual act of reproduction1 of conception1 of birth was a festival awaking the loftiest emotions4 ,the doctrine of the mysteries proclaimed the holiness of pain2 the pangs of childbirth sanctified all pain4 ,all growth and development1 every promise for the future1 is conditioned by pain4 ,to ensure the eternal pleasure of creation1 the eternal affirmation of the will to live1 the eternity of birth-pangs is absolutely required4 ,all this is signified by the word ,dionysus3 ,i know no higher symbolism than this ,greek ,dionysiac symbolism4 ,in it the deepest instinct of life1 of the future of life1 the eternity of life1 is experienced religiously2 generation1 the way to life1 is regarded as a sacred way4 ,christianity alone1 with its fundamental horror of life1 has made sexuality an impure thing1 casting filth on the beginning1 the very condition1 of our life40 ,between #ahgc and #ahgf ,nietzsche wrote four essays--on ,david ,strauss1 the ,use and ,abuse of ,history in relation to ,life1 ,schopenhauer as an ,educator1 and ,richard ,wagner--which were published as a series of ,unzeitgemsse ,betrachtungen4 ,the essay on ,strauss was written soon after the great war1 amid the resulting outburst of flamboyant patriotism and the widely-expressed conviction that the war was a victory of 8,german culture40 ,fresh from the world of ,greece1 ,nietzsche pours contempt on that assumption4 ,culture1 he says1 is1 above all1 unity of artistic style in every expression of a people's life4 ,the exuberance of knowledge in which a ,german glories is neither a necessary means of culture nor a sign of it1 being1 indeed1 more allied to the opposite of culture--to barbarism4 ,it is in this barbarism that the modern ,german lives1 that is to say1 in a chaotic mixture of all styles4 ,look at his clothing1 ,nietzsche continues1 his houses1 his streets1 all his manners and customs4 ,they are a turmoil of all styles in which he peacefully lives and moves4 ,such culture is really a phlegmatic absence of all sense of culture4 ,largely1 also1 it is merely a bad imitation of the real and productive culture of ,france which it is supposed to have conquered in #ahgj4 ,let there be no chatter1 he concludes1 about the triumph of ,german culture1 for at present no real ,german culture exists4 ,the heroic figures of the ,german past were not 8classics10 as some imagine2 they were seekers after a genuine ,german culture1 and so regarded themselves4 ,the would-be children of culture in ,germany to-day are ,philistines without knowing it1 and the only unity they have achieved is a methodical barbarism4 ,nietzsche attacks ,strauss by no means as a theologian1 but as a typical 8culture-,philistine40 ,he was moved to this by the recent publication of ,der ,alte und der ,neue ,glaube4 ,i can well understand the emotions with which that book filled him1 for ,i1 too1 read it soon after its publication1 and can vividly recall the painful impression made on me by its homely pedestrianism1 the dull unimaginativeness of the man who could only compare the world to a piece of machinery1 an engine that creaks in the working1 a sort of vast ,lancashire mill in which we must spend every moment in feverish labour1 and for our trouble perhaps be caught between the wheels and cogs4 ,but ,i was young1 and my youthful idealism1 eager for some vital and passionate picture of the world1 inevitably revolted against so tawdry and mechanical a conception4 ,nietzsche1 then and ever1 failed to perceive that there is room1 after all1 for the modest sturdy bourgeois labourer who1 at the end of a hard life in the service of truth1 sits down to enjoy his brown beer and ,haydn's quartettes1 and to repeat his homely confession of faith in the world as he sees it4 ,nietzsche failed to realise that ,strauss's limitations were essential to the work he had to do1 and that he remained a not unworthy follower of those ,german heroes who were not 8classics10 but honest seekers after the highest they knew4 ,in this hypertrophied repulsion for the everyday work of the intellectual world we touch on a defect in ,nietzsche's temperament which we must regard as fundamental1 and which wrought in him at last to wildest issues4 ,in another of these essays1 ,schopenhauer als ,erzieher1 ,nietzsche sets forth his opinions concerning his early master in philosophy4 ,it is a significant indication of the qualities that attracted him to ,schopenhauer that he compares him to ,montaigne1 thus at once revealing his own essential optimism1 and the admiration which he then and always felt for the great ,french masters of wisdom4 ,he regards ,schopenhauer as the leader from ,kant's caves of critical scepticism to the open sky with its consoling stars4 ,schopenhauer saw the world as a whole1 and was not befooled by the analysis of the colours and canvas wherewith the picture is painted4 ,kant1 in spite of the impulse of his genius1 never became a philosopher4 8,if any one thinks ,i am thus doing ,kant an injustice1 he cannot know what a philosopher is1 i4e41 not merely a great thinker but also a real man20 and he goes on to explain that the mere scholar who is accustomed to let opinions1 ideas1 and things in books always intervene between him and facts1 will never see facts1 and will never be a fact to himself2 whereas the philosopher must regard himself as the symbol and abbreviation of all the facts of the world4 ,it remained an axiom with ,nietzsche that the philosopher must first of all be a 8real man40 ,in this essay1 which ,nietzsche always preferred to his other early works1 he thus for the first time clearly sets forth his conception of the philosopher as a teacher1 a liberator1 a guide to fine living2 ,schopenhauer's metaphysical doctrine he casts aside with indifference4 ,unconsciously1 as in late years he seems to have admitted1 he was speaking of himself and setting forth his own aims4 ,thus it is characteristic that he here also first expressed his conception of the value of individuality4 ,shakespeare had asked3 8,which can say more ,than this rich praise1 that you alone are you80 ,but ,shakespeare was only addressing a single beloved friend4 ,nietzsche addresses the same thought to the common 8you40 8,at bottom every man well knows that he can only live one single life in the world1 and that never again will so strange a chance shake together into unity such singularly varied elements as he holds3 he knows that1 but he hides it like a bad conscience40 ,this was a sane and democratic individualism2 in later years1 as we shall see1 it assumed stranger shapes4 ,at ,basel ,nietzsche lived in close communion with ,wagner and ,frau ,cosima1 who at this time regarded him as the prophet of the music-drama4 ,the essay on ,wagner1 which starts from the standpoint reached in the previous essays1 seems to justify this confidence4 ,there is a deep analogy for those to whom distance is no obscuring cloud1 ,nietzsche remarks1 between ,kant and the ,eleatics1 ,schopenhauer and ,empedocles1 ,wagner and schylus4 8,the world has been orientalised long enough1 and men now seek to be hellenised40 ,the ,gordian knot has been cut and its strands are fluttering to the ends of the world2 we need a series of ,anti-,alexanders mighty enough to bring together the scattered threads of life4 ,wagner is such an ,anti-,alexander1 a great astringent force in the world4 ,for 8it is not possible to present the highest and purest operations of dramatic art1 and not therewith to renew morals and the state1 education and affairs40 ,bayreuth is the sacred consecration on the morning of battle4 8,the battles which art brings before us are a simplification of the actual battles of life2 its problems are an abbreviation of the endlessly involved reckoning of human action and aspiration4 ,but herein lies the greatness and value of art1 that it calls forth the appearance of a simpler world1 a shorter solution of the problems of life4 ,no one who suffers in life can dispense with that appearance1 just as no one can dispense with sleep40 ,wagner has simplified the world1 ,nietzsche continues2 he has related music to life1 the drama to music2 he has intensified the visible things of the world1 and made the audible visible4 ,just as ,goethe found in poetry an expression for the painter's vocation he had missed1 so ,wagner utilised in music his dramatic instinct4 ,and ,nietzsche further notes the democratic nature of ,wagner's art1 so strenuously warm and bright as to reach even the lowliest in spirit4 ,wagner takes off the stigma that clings to the word 8common10 and brings to all the means of attaining spiritual freedom4 8,for10 says ,nietzsche1 8whosoever will be free1 must make himself free2 freedom is no fairy's gift to fall into any man's lap40 ,such are the leading thoughts in an essay which remains an interesting philosophic appreciation of the place of ,wagner's art in the modern world2 yet one may well admit that it is often over-strained1 with a strain that expresses the obscure struggle of nascent antagonism4 ,it is1 indeed1 ,wagner in ,bayreuth which brings to an end ,nietzsche's first period1 and leads up to the crash which inaugurated his later period4 ,hitherto ,nietzsche's work was unquestionably sane both in substance and form4 ,no doubt it had called forth much criticism2 work so vigorous1 sincere1 and independent could not fail to arouse hostility4 ,but as we look back to-day1 these fine essays represent1 with much youthful enthusiasm1 the best that was known and thought in ,germany a quarter of a century ago4 ,nietzsche's opinions on ,wagner and ,schopenhauer1 on individualism and democracy1 the significance of early ,hellenism for moderns1 the danger of an excessive historical sense1 the conception of culture less as a striving after intellectual knowledge than as that which arouses within us the philosopher1 the artist1 and the saint--all these ideas1 wild as some of them seemed to ,nietzsche's ,german contemporaries1 are the ideas which have now largely permeated ,european culture4 ,the same cannot be said of his later ideas4 ,it was at the first ,bayreuth festival in #ahgf that this chapter in ,nietzsche's life was finally closed4 ,his profound admiration for ,wagner1 his intimate intercourse with the greatest figure in the ,german world of art1 had hitherto been the chief fact in his life4 ,all his ideals of life and his hopes for the future had grown up around the figure of ,wagner1 who seemed the leader into a new ,promised ,land4 ,during the previous two years1 however1 ,nietzsche had seen little of ,wagner1 who had left ,switzerland1 and he had been unable to realise either his own development or ,wagner's4 ,whatever enthusiasm ,nietzsche may have felt in early life for a return to ,german heathenism1 he was yet by race and training and taste by no means allied to primitive ,germanism2 it was towards ,greece and towards ,france that his conception of national culture really drew him4 ,wagner was far more profoundly ,teutonic1 and in the ,nibelung cycle1 which ,nietzsche was about to witness for the first time on the stage1 ,wagner had incarnated the spirit of ,teutonic heathenism with an overwhelming barbaric energy which1 as ,nietzsche could now realise1 was utterly alien to his own most native instincts4 ,thus it was that ,bayreuth marked the crisis of a subtle but profound realisation1 the most intense self-realisation he had yet attained4 ,the whole history of this ,wagner episode in ,nietzsche's life is full of interest4 ,the circumstantial narrative in the second volume of the ,leben ,nietzsche's renders it clear at every point1 and reveals a tragedy which has its significance for the study of genius generally4 ,nietzsche1 it must be remembered1 was more than thirty years younger than ,wagner4 ,he was younger1 and also he was less corrupted by the world than ,wagner4 ,the great artist of the music-drama possessed1 or had acquired1 a practical good sense in all that concerned the realisation of his own mighty projects such as always marks the greatest and most successful of the world's supreme artists4 ,like ,shakespeare1 he knew that the dyer's hand must ever be a little subdued to what it works in1 if the radiant beauty of his stuffs is ever to be perfectly achieved4 ,but ,nietzsche could never endure any fleck on his hand2 he shrank with horror from every soiling contact2 he was an artist who regarded life itself as the highest art4 ,he could never have carried through the rough task of dying the gorgeous garments of a narrower but more perfectly attainable art4 ,nietzsche's idealised admiration for ,wagner was complicated1 after his appointment to the ,basel chair1 by a deep personal friendship for the ,master1 the chief friendship of his life4 ,and his friendships were deeper than those of most2 although they show no traces of sexual tincture they were hypertrophied by the defective sexuality of the man who always regarded friendship as a more massive and poignant emotion than love4 ,that there were on either side any petty faults to cause a rift in friendship there is no reason whatever to believe4 ,nietzsche was above such1 and ,wagner's friendship was always hearty until he realised that ,nietzsche was no longer his disciple1 and then he dropped him1 silently1 as a workman drops a useless tool4 ,in addition it must be noted that ,nietzsche was probably at this time often over-strained1 almost hysterical1--at least so1 we may gather1 he impressed ,wagner1 who urged him to marry a rich wife and to travel1--and he was still afflicted by a disorder which not even genius can escape in youth1 he was still something of what we vulgarly call a 8prig02 he had not yet quite outgrown 8the youthful ,jesus in the ,temple40 8,your brother with his air of delicate distinction is a most uncomfortable fellow10 said ,wagner to ,frau ,frster-,nietzsche2 8one can always see what he is thinking2 sometimes he is quite embarrassed at my jokes--and then ,i crack them more madly than ever40 ,wagner's jokes1 it appears1 were of a homely and plebeian sort1 not appealing to one who lived naturally and habitually in an atmosphere of keen intellectual activity4 ,bearing all this in mind1 one can imagine the impression made upon ,nietzsche by the inaugural festival at ,bayreuth for which he had just written an impassioned and yet philosophic prologue4 ,wagner was absorbed in using all his considerable powers of managing men in finally vanquishing the difficulties in his way4 ,to any one who could see the festival from the inside1 as ,nietzsche was able to see it1 there were all the inevitable squabbles and scandals and comic contretemps which must always mark the inception of a great undertaking1 but which to-day are hidden from us1 pilgrims from many lands1 as we ascend to that hillside structure which is the chief living shrine of art in ,europe4 ,and the people who were crowding in to this 8sacred consecration on the morning of battle0 were aristocrats and plutocrats--bejewelled1 corpulent1 commonplace--headed by the old ,emperor1 anxious to do his duty1 decorously joining in the applause as he whispered 8,horrible6 horrible60 to his aide-de-camp1 and hurrying away as quickly as possible to the military manuvres4 ,there was more than enough here to make his own just issued battle-cry seem farcical to ,nietzsche4 ,all was conspiring to one end4 ,the conception of the sanctity of ,bayreuth1 his personal reverence for ,wagner were slipping away together1 and at the same time he was forced to realise that the barbaric ,germanism of this overpowering ,nibelung music was not the music for him4 ,his development would inevitably have carried him away from ,wagner1 but the festival brought on the crisis with a sudden clash4 ,nietzsche had finally conquered the mightiest of his false ideals1 and stood for ever after free and independent of all his early gods2 but the wounds of that victory were never quite closed to the last3 a completely serene and harmonious conception of things1 so far as ,wagner was concerned1 ,nietzsche never attained4 ,it may well be that the change was also physical4 ,the excitement of the festival precipitated an organic catastrophe towards which he had long been tending4 ,his sister finds the original source of this catastrophe in the war of #ahgj4 ,he desired to serve his country as a combatant1 but the ,university would only allow him leave to attend to the wounded4 ,the physical and emotional over-tension involved by his constant care of six young wounded men culminated in a severe illness1 which led on to a never-ending train of symptoms--eye-troubles1 dyspepsia1 headache1 insomnia--which were perhaps aggravated by the reckless use of drugs4 ,i have already noted passages which indicate that he was himself aware of a consuming flame within1 and that from time to time he made efforts to check its ravages4 ,that it was this internal flame which largely produced the breakdown is shown by the narrative of ,nietzsche's friend1 ,dr4 ,kretzer1 who was with him at ,bayreuth4 ,it was evident he was seriously ill1 ,kretzer tells us1 utterly changed and broken down4 ,his eye-troubles were associated1 if not with actual brain disease1 at all events with a high degree of neurasthenia4#b ,at ,bayreuth1 ,nietzsche was forced to realise the peril of his position as he had never realised it before4 ,he could no longer disguise from himself that he must break with all the passionate interests of his past4 ,it was an essential measure of hygiene1 almost a surgical operation4 ,this is indeed how he has himself put the matter4 ,in the preface to ,der ,fall ,wagner1 he said that it had been to him a necessary self-discipline to take part against all that was morbid within himself1 against ,wagner1 against ,schopenhauer1 against all the impassioning interests of modern life1 and to view the world1 so far as possible1 with the philosopher's eyes1 from an immense height4 ,and again he speaks of ,wagner's art as a beaker of ecstasy so subtle and profound that it acts like poison and leaves no remedy at last but flight from the siren's cave4 ,nietzsche was henceforth in the position of a gouty subject who is forced to abandon port wine and straightway becomes an apostle of total abstinence4 ,the remedy seems to have been fairly successful4 ,but the disease was in his bones4 ,impassioning interests that were far more subtly poisonous slowly developed within him1 and twelve years later flight had become impossible1 even if he was still able to realise the need for fight4 ,nietzsche broke very thoroughly with his past1 yet the break has been exaggerated1 and he himself often helped to exaggerate it4 ,he was in the position of a beleaguered city which has been forced to abandon its outer walls and concentrate itself in the citadel2 and however it may have been in ancient warfare1 in spiritual affairs such a state of things involves an offensive attitude towards the former line of defence4 ,the positions we have abandoned constitute a danger to the positions we have taken up4 ,many of the world's fiercest persecutors have but persecuted their old selves1 and there seems to be psychological necessity for such an attitude4 ,yet a careful study of ,nietzsche's earlier activity reveals many germs of later developments4 ,the critical attitude towards conventional morality1 the individualism1 the optimism1 the ideal of heroism1 which dominate his later thought1 exist as germs in his earlier work4 ,even the flagrant contrast between ,richard ,wagner in ,bayreuth and ,der ,fall ,wagner was the outcome of a gradual development4 ,in the earlier essay ,nietzsche had justly pointed out that ,wagner's instincts were fundamentally dramatic4 ,as years went on he brooded over this idea2 the nimble and lambent wit of his later days played around it until ,wagner became a mere actor in his work and in his life1 a rhetorician1 an incarnate falsehood1 the personification of latter-day decadence1 the ,victor ,hugo of music1 the ,bernini of music1 the modern ,cagliostro4 ,at the same time he admits that ,wagner represents the modern spirit1 and that it is reasonable for a musician to say that though he hates ,wagner he can tolerate no other music4 ,the fact is1 one may well repeat1 that ,nietzsche was not ,teuton enough to abide for ever with ,wagner4 ,he compares him contemptuously with ,hegel1 cloud-compellers both1 masters of ,german mists and ,german mysticism1 worshippers of ,wotan1 the god of bad weather1 the god of the ,germans4 8,how could they miss what we1 we ,halcyonians1 miss in ,wagner--la gaya scienza1 the light feet1 wit1 fire1 grace1 strong logic1 the dance of the stars1 arrogant intellectuality1 the quivering light of the south1 the smooth sea--perfection80 ,it was scarcely1 however1 the ,halcyonian in ,nietzsche that stood between him and ,wagner4 ,that is well shown by his attitude towards ,parsifal4 ,whatever we may think of the ideas embodied in ,parsifal1 it may yet seem to us the most solemn1 the most graciously calm and beautiful spectacle that has ever been fitly set to music4 ,in ,nietzsche the thinker and the moralist were so much stronger than the artist that he could see nothing here but bad psychology1 bad thinking1 and bad religion4 ,the rebellion against ,wagner was inevitable4 ,it is evident that ,nietzsche had not gained complete mastery of his own personality in his earlier work4 ,it is brilliant1 full of fine perceptions and critical insight1 but as a personal utterance incomplete4 ,it renders the best ideas of the time1 not the best ideas that ,nietzsche could contribute to the time4 ,the shock of #ahgf may have been a step towards the disintegration of his intellect1 but it was also a rally1 a step towards a higher self-realisation4 ,nietzsche had no genuine affinity with ,schopenhauer or with ,wagner1 though they were helpful to his development2 he was no pessimist1 he was no democrat4 ,as he himself said1 8,i understood the philosophic pessimism of the nineteenth century as the symptom of a finer strength of thought1 a more victorious fulness of life4 ,in the same way ,wagner's music signified to me the expression of a ,dionysiac mightiness of soul in which ,i seemed to hear1 as in an earthquake1 the upheaval of the primitive powers of life1 after age-long repression40 ,now he only needed relief1 8golden1 tender1 oily melodies10 to soothe the leaden weight of life1 and these he found in ,carmen4 ,any discussion of the merits of the question as between ,wagner and ,bizet1 the earlier and the later ,nietzsche1 seems to me out of place1 though much has been made of it by those who delight to see a giant turn and rend himself4 ,nietzsche himself said he was writing for psychologists1 and it is not unfair to add that it is less 8,wagner's case0 that he presents to us than 8,nietzsche's case40 ,as to the merits of the case1 we may alike admit that ,nietzsche's enthusiasm for ,wagner was not excessive1 and that the pleasant things he said of ,carmen are fully justified2 we may address both the early and the late ,nietzsche in the words habitually used by the landlord of the 8,rainbow03 8,you're both wrong and you're both right1 as ,i allus says40 ,most of the mighty quarrels that have sent men to battle and the stake might have been appeased had each side recognised that both were right in their affirmations1 both wrong in their denials4 ,nietzsche occupied his chair at ,basel for some years longer2 in #ahhj his health forced him to resign and he was liberally pensioned4 ,as a professor he treated the most difficult questions of ,greek study1 and devoted his chief attention to his best pupils1 who in their turn adored him4 ,basel is an admirable residence for a cosmopolitan thinker2 it was easy for ,nietzsche to keep in touch with all that went on from ,paris to ,st4 ,petersburg4 ,he was also on terms of more or less intimate friendship with the finest spirits in ,switzerland1 with ,keller the novelist1 ,bcklin the painter1 ,burckhardt the historian4 ,we are told that he was a man of great personal charm in social intercourse4 ,but his associates at ,basel never suspected that in this courteous and amiable professor was stored up an explosive energy which would one day be felt in every civilised land4 ,with pen in hand his criticism of life was unflinching1 his sincerity arrogant2 when the pen was dropped he became modest1 reserved1 almost timorous4 ,the work he produced between #ahgg and #ahhb seems to me to represent the maturity of his genius4 ,it includes ,menschliches1 ,allzumenschliches1 ,morgenrthe1 and ,die ,frhliche ,wissenschaft4 ,in form all these volumes belong to pense literature4 ,they deal with art1 with religion1 with morals and philosophy1 with the relation of all these to life4 ,nietzsche shows himself in these penses above all a freethinker1 emancipated from every law save that of sincerity1 wide-ranging1 serious1 penetrative1 often impassioned1 as yet always able to follow his own ideal of self-restraint4 ,after leaving ,basel he spent the following nine years chiefly at health resorts and in travelling4 ,we find him at ,sorrento1 ,venice1 ,genoa1 ,turin1 ,sils ,maria1 as well as at ,leipzig4 ,doubtless his fresh and poignant penses are largely the outcome of strenuous solitary walks in the ,engadine or among the ,italian lakes4 ,we may assume that during most of these years he was fighting1 on the whole successfully fighting1 for mental health4 ,yet passages that occur throughout his books seem to suggest that his thoughts may have sometimes turned to the goal towards which he was tending4 ,it is a mistake1 he points out1 to suppose that insanity is always the symptom of a degenerating culture1 although to nod towards the asylum is a convenient modern way of slaying spiritual tyrants2 it is in primitive and developing stages of culture that insanity has played its chief part2 only by virtue of what seemed to be the 8,divine0 turbulence of insanity and epilepsy could any new moral law make progress among early cultures4 ,just as for us there seems a little madness in all genius1 so for them there seemed a little genius in all madness2 sorcerers and saints agonised in solitude and abstinence for some gleam of madness which would bring them faith in themselves and openly justify their mission4 ,what may perhaps be called ,nietzsche's third period began in #ahhc with ,also sprach ,zarathustra1 the most extraordinary of all his works1 mystical and oracular in form1 but not mystical in substance4 ,zarathustra has only a distant relationship to his prototype ,zoroaster1 though ,nietzsche had a natural sympathy with the symbolism of fire and water1 with the reverence for light and purity1 which mark the rites associated with the name of the ,bactrian prophet2 he has here allowed himself to set forth his own ideas and ideals in the free and oracular manner of all ancient scriptures1 and is thus enabled to present his visions in a concrete form4 ,zarathustra1 for the first and last time1 gave scope to the artist within ,nietzsche1 and with all its extravagance and imperfection it must remain for good or evil his most personal utterance4 ,it was followed by ,jenseits von ,gut und ,bse1 ,zur ,genealogie der ,moral1 ,der ,fall ,wagner1 and ,gtzendmmerung4 ,it is during this period that we trace the growth of the magnification of his own personal mission which finally became a sort of megalomania4 78,i have given to men the deepest book they possess1 my ,zarathustra10 he wrote towards the end47 ,in form the books of this period are sometimes less fragmentary than those of the second period2 in substance they are marked by their emphatic1 often extravagant1 almost reckless insistence on certain views of morality4 ,if in the first period he was an apostle of culture1 in the second a freethinker1 pronouncing judgment on all things in heaven and earth1 he was now exclusively a moralist1 or1 as he would prefer to say1 an immoralist4 ,it was during this period that he worked out his 8master morality0--the duty to be strong--in opposition to the 8slave morality0 of ,christianity1 with its glorification of weakness and pity1 and that he consistently sought to analyse and destroy the traditional conceptions of good and evil on which our current morality rests4 ,the last work which he planned1 but never completed1 was a re-valuation of all values1 ,umwerthung aller ,werthe1 which would have been his final indictment of the modern world1 and the full statement of his own immoralism and ,dionysiac philosophy4 ,it is sometimes said that ,nietzsche's mastery of his thought and style was increasing up to the last4 ,this ,i can scarcely admit1 even as regards style4 ,no doubt there is at the best a light and swift vigour of movement in these last writings which before he had never attained4 ,he can pour out now a shimmering stream of golden phrases with which he has intoxicated himself1 and tries to intoxicate us4 ,we may lend ourselves to the charm1 but it has no enduring hold4 ,this master of gay or bitter invective no longer possesses the keenly reasoned and piercing insight of the earlier ,nietzsche4 ,we feel that he has become the victim of obsessions which drive him like a leaf before the wind1 and all his exuberant wit is unsubstantial and pathetic as that of ,falstaff4 ,the devouring flame has at length eaten the core out of the man and his style1 leaving only this coruscating shell4 ,and at a touch even this thin shell collapsed into smouldering embers4 ,from a child ,nietzsche was subject to strangely prophetic dreams4 ,in a dream which1 when a boy1 he put into literary form1 he tells how he seemed to be travelling forward amid a glorious landscape1 while carolling larks ascended to the clouds1 and his whole life seemed to stretch before him in a vista of happy years2 8and suddenly a shrill cry reached our ears2 it came from the neighbouring lunatic asylum40 ,even in #ahgf his friends began to see that ,nietzsche attached extraordinary importance to his own work4 ,after he wrote ,zarathustra1 this self-exaltation increased1 and began to find expression in his work4 ,latterly1 it is said1 he came to regard himself as the incarnation of the genius of humanity4 ,it has always been found a terrible matter to war with the moral system of one's age2 it will have its revenge1 one way or another1 from within or from without1 whatever happens after4 ,nietzsche strove for nothing less than to remodel the moral world after his own heart's desire1 and his brain was perishing of exhaustion in the immense effort4 ,in #ahhi--;at the moment when his work at last began to attract attention--he became hopelessly insane4 ,a period of severe hallucinatory delirium led on to complete dementia1 and he passes beyond our sight4 ,,ii4 ,nietzsche was by temperament a philosopher after the manner of the ,greeks4 ,in other words1 philosophy was not to him1 as to the average modern philosopher1 a matter of books and the study1 but a life to be lived4 ,it seemed to him to have much less concern with 8truth0 than with the essentials of fine living4 ,he loved travel and movement1 he loved scenery1 he loved cities and the spectacle of men2 above all1 he loved solitude4 ,the solitude of cities drew him strongly2 he envied ,heraclitus his desert study amid the porticoes and peristyles of the immense temple of ,diana4 ,he had1 however1 his own favourite place of work1 to which he often alludes1 the ,piazza di ,san ,marco at ,venice1 amid the doves1 in front of the strange and beautiful structure which he 8loved1 feared1 and envied20 and here in the spring1 between ten o'clock and midday1 he found his best philosophic laboratory4 ,it was in ,italy that ,nietzsche seems to have found himself most at home1 although there are no signs that he felt any special sympathy with the ,italians1 that is to say in later than ,renaissance days4 ,for the most part he possessed very decided sympathies and antipathies4 ,his antipathy to his own ,germans lay in the nature of things4 ,every prophet's message is primarily directed to his own people4 ,and ,nietzsche was unsparing in his keen criticism of the ,germans4 ,he tells somewhere with a certain humour how people abroad would ask him if ,germany had produced of late no great thinker or artist1 no really good book1 and how with the courage of despair he would at last reply1 8,yes1 ,bismarck60 ,nietzsche was willing enough to recognise the kind of virtue personified in ,bismarck4 ,but with that recognition nearly all was said in favour of ,germany that ,nietzsche had to say4 ,there is little in the ,german spirit that answered to his demands4 ,he admired clearness1 analytic precision1 and highly organised intelligence1 light and alert4 ,he saw no sufficient reason why profundity should lack a fine superficies1 nor why strength should be ungainly4 ,his instinctive comparison for a good thinker was always a good dancer4 ,as a child he had been struck by seeing a rope-dancer1 and throughout life dancing seemed to him the image of the finest culture1 supple to bend1 strong to retain its own equilibrium1 an exercise demanding the highest training and energy of all the muscles of a well-knit organism4 ,but the indubitable intellectual virtues of the bulky and plodding ,german are scarcely those which can well be symbolised by an ,otero or a ,caicedo4 8,there is too much beer in the ,german intellect10 ,nietzsche said4 ,for the last ten centuries ,germany has wilfully stultified herself2 8nowhere else has there been so vicious a misuse of the two great ,european narcotics1 alcohol and ,christianity10 to which he was inclined to add music4 78,the theatre and music10 he remarked in ,die ,frhliche ,wissenschaft1 8are the haschisch and betel of ,europeans1 and the history of the so-called higher culture is largely the history of narcotics407 8,germans regard bad writing10 he said1 8as a national privilege2 they do not write prose as one works at a statue1 they only improvise40 ,even 8,german virtue0--and this was the unkindest cut of all--had its origin in eighteenth century ,france1 as its early preachers1 such as ,kant and ,schiller1 fully recognised4 ,thus it happens that the ,german has no perceptions--coupling his ,goethe with a ,schiller1 and his ,schopenhauer with a ,hartmann--and no tact1 8no finger for nuances10 his fingers are all claws4 ,the few persons of high culture whom he had met in ,germany1 he noted towards the end of his life1 and especially ,frau ,cosima ,wagner1 were all of ,french origin4 ,nietzsche regarded it as merely an accident that he was himself born in ,germany1 just as it was merely an accident that ,heine the ,jew1 and ,schopenhauer the ,dutchman1 were born there4 ,yet1 as ,i have already hinted1 we may take these utterances too seriously4 ,there are passages in his works--though we meet them rarely--which show that ,nietzsche recognised and admired the elemental energy1 the depth and the contradictions in the ,german character2 he attributed them largely to mixture of races4 ,nietzsche was not much attracted to the ,english4 ,it is true that he names ,landor as one of the four masters of prose this century has produced1 while another of these is ,emerson1 with whom he had genuine affinity1 although his own intellect was keener and more passionate1 with less sunny serenity4 ,for ,shakespeare1 also1 his admiration was deep4 ,and when he had outgrown his early enthusiasm for ,schopenhauer1 the fine qualities which he still recognised in that thinker--his concreteness1 lucidity1 reasonableness--seemed to him ,english4 ,he was usually less flattering towards ,english thought4 ,darwinism1 for instance1 he thought1 savoured too much of the population question1 and was invented by ,english men of science who were oppressed by the problems of poverty4 ,the struggle for existence1 he said1 is only an exception in nature2 it is exuberance1 an even reckless superfluity1 which rules4 ,for ,english philosophic thought generally he had little but contempt4 ,j4 ,s4 ,mill was one of his 8impossibilities02 the ,english and ,french sociologists of to-day1 he said1 have only known degenerating types of society1 devoid of organising force1 and they take their own debased instincts as the standard of social codes in general4 ,modern democracy1 modern utilitarianism1 are largely of ,english manufacture1 and he came at last to hate them both4 ,during the past century1 he asserted1 they have reduced the whole spiritual currency of ,europe to a dull plebeian level1 and they are the chief causes of ,european vulgarity4 ,it is the ,english1 he also asserted--,george ,eliot1 for instance--who1 while abolishing ,christian belief1 have sought to bolster up the moral system which was created by ,christianity1 and which must necessarily fall with it4 ,it is1 moreover1 the ,english1 who with this democratic and utilitarian plebeianism have seduced and perverted the fine genius of ,france4 ,just as we owe to ,england the vulgarity which threatens to overspread ,europe1 so to ,france we owe the conception of a habit of nobility1 in every best sense of the word4 ,on that point ,nietzsche's opinion never wavered4 ,the present subjection of the ,french spirit to this damnable ,anglo-mania1 he declared1 must never lead us to forget the ardent and passionate energy1 the intellectual distinction1 which belonged to the ,france of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries4#c ,the ,french1 as ,nietzsche always held1 are the one modern ,european nation which may be compared with the ,greeks4 ,in ,menschliches1 ,allzumenschliches he names six ,french writers--,montaigne1 ,la ,rochefoucauld1 ,la ,bruyre1 ,fontenelle 7in the ,dialogues des ,morts71 ,vauvenarges1 ,chamfort--who bring us nearer to ,greek antiquity than any other group of modern authors1 and contain more real thought than all the books of the ,german philosophers put together4 ,the only ,french writer of the present century for whom he cared much 7putting aside ,mrime7 was ,stendhal1 who possesses some of the characters of the earlier group4 ,the ,french1 he points out1 are the most ,christian of all nations1 and have produced the greatest saints4 ,he enumerates ,pascal 78the first among ,christians1 who was able to unite fervour1 intellect1 and candour2--think of what that means6071 ,fnelon1 ,mme4 de ,guyon1 ,de ,ranc1 the founder of the ,trappists who have flourished nowhere but in ,france1 the ,huguenots1 ,port-,royal--truly1 he exclaims1 the great ,french freethinkers encountered foemen worthy of their steel6 ,the land which produced the most perfect types of ,anti-,christianity produced also the most perfect types of ,christianity4 ,he defends1 also1 that seeming superficiality which in a great ,frenchman1 he says1 is but the natural epidermis of a rich and deep nature1 while a great ,german's profundity is too often strangely bottled up from the light in a dark and contorted phial4 ,i have briefly stated ,nietzsche's feeling as regards each of the three chief ,european peoples1 because we are thus led up to the central points of his philosophy--his attitude towards modern religion and his attitude towards modern morals4 ,we are often apt to regard these matters as of little practical importance2 we think it the reasonable duty of practical social politics to attend to the immediate questions in hand1 and leave these wider questions to settle themselves4 ,rightly or wrongly1 that was not how ,nietzsche looked at the matter4 ,he was too much of a philosopher1 he had too keen a sense of the vital relation of things1 to be content with the policy of tinkering society1 wherever it seems to need mending most badly1 avoiding any reference to the whole4 ,that is our ,english method1 and no doubt it is a very sane and safe method1 but1 as we have seen1 ,nietzsche was not in sympathy with ,english methods4 ,his whole significance lies in the thorough and passionate analysis with which he sought to dissect and to dissolve1 first1 8,german culture10 then ,christianity1 and lastly1 modern morals1 with all that these involve4 ,it is scarcely necessary to point out1 that though ,nietzsche rejoiced in the title of freethinker1 he can by no means be confounded with the ordinary secularist4 ,he is not bent on destroying religion from any ansthesia of the religious sense1 or even in order to set up some religion of science which is practically no religion at all4 ,he is thus on different ground from the great freethinkers of ,france1 and to some extent of ,england4 ,nietzsche was himself of the stuff of which great religious teachers are made1 of the race of apostles4 ,so when he writes of the founder of ,christianity and the great ,christian types1 it is often with a poignant sympathy which the secularist can never know2 and if his knife seems keen and cruel1 it is not the easy indifferent cruelty of the pachydermatous scoffer4 ,when he analyses the souls of these men and the impulses which have moved them1 he knows with what he is dealing3 he is analysing his own soul4 ,a mystic ,nietzsche certainly was not2 he had no moods of joyous resignation4 ,it is chiefly the religious ecstasy of active moral energy that he was at one with4 ,the sword of the spirit is his weapon rather than the merely defensive breastplate of faith4 ,st4 ,paul is the consummate type of such religious forces1 and whatever ,nietzsche wrote of that apostle--the inventor of ,christianity1 as he truly calls him--is peculiarly interesting4 ,he hates him1 indeed1 but even his hatred thrills with a tone of intimate sympathy4 ,it is thus in a remarkable passage in ,morgenrthe1 where he tells briefly the history and struggles of that importunate soul1 so superstitious and yet so shrewd1 without whom there would have been no ,christianity4 ,he describes the self-torture of the neurotic1 sensual1 refined 8,jewish ,pascal10 who flagellated himself with the law that he came to hate with the hatred of one who had a genius for hatred2 who in one dazzling flash of illumination realised that ,jesus by accomplishing the law had annihilated it1 and so furnished him with the instrument he desired to wreak his passionate hatred on the law1 and to revel in the freedom of his joy4 ,nietzsche possesses a natural insight in probing the wounds of self-torturing souls4 ,he excels also in describing the effects of extreme pain in chasing away the mists from life1 in showing to a man his own naked personality1 in bringing us face to face with the cold and terrible fact4 ,it is thus that1 coupling the greatest figure in history with the greatest figure in fiction1 he compares the pathetic utterance of ,jesus on the cross--8,my ,god1 my ,god1 why hast thou forsaken me80--with the disillusionment of the dying ,don ,quixote4 ,of ,jesus himself he speaks no harsh word1 but he regarded the atmosphere of ,roman decay and languor--though very favourable for the production of fine personalities--as ill-adapted to the development of a great religion4 ,the ,gospels lead us into the atmosphere of a ,russian novel1 he remarks in one of his last writings1 ,der ,antichrist1 an atmosphere in which the figure of ,jesus had to be coarsened to be understood2 it became moulded in men's minds by memories of more familiar types--prophet1 ,messiah1 wonder-worker1 judge2 the real man they could not even see4 8,it must ever be a matter for regret that no ,dostoievsky lived in the neighbourhood of this most interesting dcadent1 ,i mean some one who could understand the enthralling charm of just this mixture of the sublime1 the morbid1 and the childlike40 ,jesus1 he continues1 never denied the world1 the state1 culture1 work2 he simply never knew or realised their existence2 his own inner experience--8life10 8light10 8truth0--was all in all to him4 ,the only realities to him were inner realities1 so living that they make one feel 8in ,heaven0 and 8eternal02 this it was to be 8saved40 ,and ,nietzsche notes1 as so many have noted before him1 that the fact that men should bow the knee in ,christ's name to the very opposite of all these things1 and consecrate in the 8,church0 all that he threw behind him1 is an insoluble example of historical irony4 8,strictly speaking1 there has only been one ,christian1 and he died on the cross4 ,the ,gospel died on the cross40 ,there may seem a savour of contempt in the allusion to ,jesus as an 8interesting dcadent10 and undoubtedly there is in ,der ,antichrist a passionate bitterness which is not found in ,nietzsche's earlier books4 ,but he habitually used the word dcadent in a somewhat extended and peculiar sense4 ,the dcadent1 as ,nietzsche understood him1 was the product of an age in which virility was dead and weakness was sanctified2 it was so with the ,buddhist as well as with the ,christian1 they both owe their origin and their progress to 8some monstrous disease of will40 ,they sprang up among creatures who craved for some 8,thou shalt10 and who were apt only for that one form of energy which the weak possess1 fanaticism4 ,by an instinct which may be regarded as sound by those who do not accept his disparagement of either1 ,nietzsche always coupled the ,christian and the anarchist2 to him they were both products of decadence4 ,both wish to revenge their own discomfort on this present world1 he asserted1 the anarchist immediately1 the ,christian at the last day4 ,instead of feeling1 8,i am worth nothing10 the dcadent says1 8,life is worth nothing10--a terribly contagious state of mind which has covered the world with the vitality of a tropical jungle4 ,it cannot be too often repeated1 ,nietzsche continues1 that ,christianity was born of the decay of antiquity1 and on the degenerate people of that time it worked like a soothing balm2 their eyes and ears were sealed by age and they could no longer understand ,epicurus and ,epictetus4 ,at such a time purity and beneficence1 large promises of future life1 worked sweetly and wholesomely4 ,but for fresh young barbarians ,christianity is poison4 ,it produces a fundamental enfeeblement of such heroic1 childlike1 and animal natures as the ancient ,germans1 and to that enfeeblement1 indeed1 we owe the revival of classic culture2 so that the conclusion of the whole matter is here1 as ever1 ,nietzsche remarks1 that 8it is impossible to say whether1 in the language of ,christianity1 ,god owes more thanks to the ,devil1 or the ,devil to ,god1 for the way in which things have come about40 ,but in the interaction of the classic spirit and the ,christian spirit1 ,nietzsche's own instincts were not on the side of ,christianity1 and as the years went on he expresses himself in ever more unmeasured language4 ,he could not take up the ,imitation of ,christ--the very word 8imitation0 being1 as indeed ,michelet had said before1 the whole of ,christianity--without physical repugnance4 ,and in the ,gtzendmmerung he compares the ,bible with the ,laws of ,manu 7though at the same time asserting that it is a sin to name the two books in the same breath73 8,the sun lies on the whole book4 ,all those things on which ,christianity vents its bottomless vulgarity--procreation1 for example1 woman1 marriage--are here handled earnestly and reverently1 with love and trust4 ,i know no book in which so many tender and gracious things are said about women as in the ,laws of ,manu40 ,again in ,der ,antichrist--which represents1 ,i repeat1 the unbalanced judgments of his last period--he tells how he turns from ,paul with delight to ,petronius1 a book of which it can be said tutto festo1 8immortally sound1 immortally serene40 ,in the whole ,new ,testament1 he adds1 there is only one figure we can genuinely honour--that of ,pilate4 ,on the whole1 ,nietzsche's attitude towards ,christianity was one of repulsion and antagonism4 ,at first he appears indifferent1 then he becomes calmly judicial1 finally he is bitterly hostile4 ,he admits that ,christianity possesses the virtues of a cunningly concocted narcotic to soothe the leaden griefs and depressions of men whose souls are physiologically weak4 ,but from first to last there is no sign of any genuine personal sympathy with the religion of the poor in spirit4 ,epicureanism1 the pagan doctrine of salvation1 had in it an element of ,greek energy1 but the ,christian doctrine of salvation1 he declares1 raises its sublime development of hedonism on a thoroughly morbid foundation4 ,christianity hates the body2 the first act of ,christian triumph over the ,moors1 he recalls1 was to close the public baths which they had everywhere erected4 8,with its contempt for the body ,christianity was the greatest misfortune that ever befell humanity40 ,and at the end of ,der ,antichrist he sums up his concentrated hatred3 8,i condemn ,christianity2 ,i raise against the ,christian ,church the most terrible accusation that any accuser has ever uttered4 ,it is to me the most profound of all thinkable corruptions40 ,it is scarcely necessary to add that ,nietzsche's condemnation of ,christianity extended to the ,christian ,god4 ,he even went so far as to assert that it was the development of ,christian morality itself--8the father-confessor sensitiveness of the ,christian conscience translated and sublimed into a scientific conscience0--which had finally conquered the ,christian ,god4 ,he held that polytheism had played an important part in the evolution of culture4 ,gods1 heroes1 supernatural beings generally1 were inestimable schoolmasters to bring us to the sovereignty of the individual4 ,polytheism opened up divine horizons of freedom to humanity4 8,ye shall be as gods40 ,but it has not been so with monotheism4 ,the doctrine of a single ,god1 in whose presence all others were false gods1 favours stagnation and unity of type2 monotheism has thus perhaps constituted 8the greatest danger which humanity has had to meet in past ages40 ,nor are we yet freed from its influence4 8,for centuries after ,buddha died men showed his shadow in a cave--a vast terrible shadow4 ,god is dead3 but thousands of years hence there will probably be caves in which his shadow may yet be seen4 ,and we--we must go on fighting that shadow60 ,how deeply rooted ,nietzsche believed faith in a god to be is shown by the fantastic conclusion to ,zarathustra4 ,a strange collection of ,uebermenschen--the men of the future--are gathered together in ,zarathustra's cave3 two kings1 the last of the popes--thrown out of work by the death of ,god--and many miscellaneous creatures1 including a donkey4 ,as ,zarathustra returns to his cave he hears the sound of prayer and smells the odour of incense2 on entering he finds the ,uebermenschen on their knees intoning an extraordinary litany to the donkey1 who has 8created us all in his own image40 ,in his opposition to the ,christian faith and the ,christian ,god1 ,nietzsche by no means stands alone1 however independent he may have been in the method and standpoint of his attack4 ,but in his opposition to ,christian morality he was more radically original4 ,there is a very general tendency among those who reject ,christian theology to shore up the superstructure of ,christian morality which rests on that theology4 ,george ,eliot1 in her writings at all events1 has been an eloquent and distinguished advocate of this process2 ,mr4 ,myers1 in an oft-quoted passage1 has described with considerable melodramatic vigour the 8sibyl in the gloom0 of the ,trinity ,fellows' ,garden at ,cambridge1 who withdrew ,god and ,immortality from his grasp1 but1 to his consternation1 told him to go on obeying ,duty4 ,what ,george ,eliot proposed was one of those compromises so dear to our ,british minds4 ,nietzsche would none of it4 ,hence his contemptuous treatment of ,george ,eliot1 of ,j4 ,s4 ,mill1 of ,herbert ,spencer1 and so many more of our favourite intellectual heroes who have striven to preserve ,christian morality while denying ,christian theology4 ,nietzsche regarded our current moral ideals1 whether formulated by bishops or by anarchists1 as alike founded on a ,christian basis1 and when that foundation is sapped they cannot stand4 ,the motive of modern morality is pity1 its principle is altruistic1 its motto is 8,love your neighbour as yourself10 its ideal self-abnegation1 its end the greatest good of the greatest number4 ,all these things were abhorrent to ,nietzsche1 or so far as he accepted them1 it was in forms which gave them new values4 ,modern morality1 he said1 is founded on an extravagant dread of pain1 in ourselves primarily1 secondarily in others4 ,sympathy is fellow-suffering2 to love one's neighbour as oneself is to dread his pain as we dread our own pain4 ,the religion of love is built upon the fear of pain4 8,on n'est bon que par la piti20 the acceptance of that doctrine ,nietzsche considers the chief outcome of ,christianity1 although1 he thinks1 not essential to ,christianity1 which rested on the egoistic basis of personal salvation3 8,one thing is needful40 ,but it remains the most important by-product of ,christianity1 and has ever been gaining strength4 ,spinoza and ,kant stood firmly outside the stream1 but the ,french freethinkers1 from ,voltaire onwards1 were not to be outdone in this direction by ,christians1 while ,comte with his 8,vivre pour autrui0 even out-,christianised ,christianity1 and ,schopenhauer in ,germany1 ,j4 ,s4 ,mill in ,england1 carried on the same doctrine4 8,the great question of life10 said ,benjamin ,constant in ,adolphe--and it is a saying that our finest emotions are quick to echo--8is the pain that we cause40 ,both the sympathetic man and the unsympathetic man1 ,nietzsche argues1 are egoists4 ,but the unsympathetic man he held to be a more admirable kind of egoist4 ,it is best to win the strength that comes of experience and suffering1 and to allow others also to play their own cards and win the same strength1 shedding our tears in private1 and abhorring soft-heartedness as the foe of all manhood and courage4 ,to call the unsympathetic man 8wicked10 and the sympathetic man 8good10 seemed to ,nietzsche a fashion in morals1 a fashion which will have its day4 ,he believed he was the first to point out the danger of the prevailing fashion as a sort of moral impressionism1 the outcome of the hypersthesia peculiar to periods of decadence4 ,not indeed that ,christianity is1 or could be1 carried out among us to its fullest extent3 8,that would be a serious matter4 ,if we were ever to become the object to others of the same stupidities and importunities which they expend on themselves1 we should flee wildly as soon as we saw our #8neighbour' approach1 and curse sympathy as heartily as we now curse egoism40 ,our deepest and most personal griefs1 ,nietzsche remarks elsewhere1 remain unrevealed and incomprehensible to nearly all other persons1 even to the 8neighbour0 who eats out of the same dish with us4 ,and even though my grief should become visible1 the dear sympathetic neighbour can know nothing of its complexity and results1 of the organic economy of my soul4 ,that my grief may be bound up with my happiness troubles him little4 ,the devotee of the 8religion of pity0 will heal my sorrows without a moment's delay2 he knows not that the path to my ,heaven must lie through my own ,hell1 that happiness and unhappiness are twin sisters who grow up together1 or remain stunted together4 8,morality is the mob-instinct working in the individual40 ,it rests1 ,nietzsche asserts1 on two thoughts3 8the community is worth more than the individual10 and 8a permanent advantage is better than a temporary advantage20 whence it follows that all the advantages of the community are preferable to those of the individual4 ,morality thus becomes a string of negative injunctions1 a series of 8,thou shalt nots10 with scarcely a positive command amongst them2 witness the well-known table of ,jewish commandments4 ,now ,nietzsche could not endure mere negative virtues4 ,he resented the subtle change which has taken place in the very meaning of the word 8virtue10 and which has perverted it from an expression of positive masculine qualities into one of merely negative feminine qualities4 ,in his earliest essay he referred to 8active sin0 as the ,promethean virtue which distinguishes the ,aryans4 ,the only moral codes that commended themselves to him were those that contained positive commands alone3 8,do this6 ,do it with all your heart1 and all your strength1 and all your dreams6--and all other things shall be taken away from you60 ,for if we are truly devoted to the things that are good to do we need trouble ourselves little about the things that are good to leave undone4 ,nietzsche compared himself to a mole boring down into the ground and undermining what philosophers have for a couple of thousand years considered the very surest ground to build on--the trust in morals4 ,one of his favourite methods of attack is by the analysis of the 8conscience40 ,he points out that whatever we were regularly required to do in youth by those we honoured and feared created our 8good conscience40 ,the dictates of conscience1 however urgent1 thus have no true validity as regards the person who experiences them4 8,but10 some one protests1 8must we not trust our feelings80 8,yes10 replies ,nietzsche1 8trust your feelings1 but still remember that the inspiration which springs from feelings is the grandchild of an opinion1 often a false one1 and in any case not your own4 ,to trust one's feelings--that means to yield more obedience to one's grandfather and grandmother and their grandparents than to the gods within our own breasts3 our own reason and our own experience40 ,faith in authority is thus the source of conscience2 it is not the voice of ,god in the human heart but the voice of man4 ,the sphere of the moral is the sphere of tradition1 and a man is moral because he is dependent on a tradition and not on himself4 ,originally everything was within the sphere of morals1 and it was only possible to escape from that sphere by becoming a law-giver1 medicine-man1 demigod--that is to say by making morals4 ,to be customary is to be moral1--,i still closely follow ,nietzsche's thought and expression1--to be individual is to be wicked4 ,every kind of originality involves a bad conscience4 ,nietzsche insists with fine eloquence1 again and again1 that every good gift that has been given to man put a bad conscience into the heart of the giver4 ,every good thing was once new1 unaccustomed1 immoral1 and gnawed at the vitals of the finder like a worm4 ,primitive men lived in hordes1 and must obey the horde-voice within them4 ,every new doctrine is wicked4 ,science has always come into the world with a bad conscience1 with the emotions of a criminal1 at least of a smuggler4 ,no man can be disobedient to custom and not be immoral1 and feel that he is immoral4 ,the artist1 the actor1 the merchant1 the freethinker1 the discoverer1 were once all criminals1 and were persecuted1 crushed1 rendered morbid1 as all persons must be when their virtues are not the virtues idealised by the community4 ,the whole phenomena of morals are animal-like1 and have their origin in the search for prey and the avoidance of pursuit4 ,progress is thus a gradual emancipation from morals4 ,we have to recognise the services of the men who fight in this struggle against morals1 and who are crushed into the ranks of criminals4 ,not that we need pity them4 8,it is a new justice that is called for1 a new mot d'ordre4 ,we need new philosophers4 ,the moral world also is round4 ,the moral world also has its antipodes1 and the antipodes also have their right to exist4 ,a new world remains to be discovered--and more than one6 ,hoist sail1 ,o philosophers60 8,men must become both better and wickeder40 ,so spake ,zarathustra2 or1 as he elsewhere has it1 8,it is with man as with a tree1 the higher he would climb into the brightness above1 the more vigorously his roots must strive earthwards1 downwards1 into the darkness and the depths--into the wicked40 ,wickedness is just as indispensable as goodness4 ,it is the ploughshare of wickedness which turns up and fertilises the exhausted fields of goodness4 ,we must no longer be afraid to be wicked2 we must no longer be afraid to be hard4 8,only the noblest things are very hard4 ,this new command1 ,o my brothers1 ,i lay upon you--become hard40 ,in renewing our moral ideas we need also to renew our whole conception of the function and value of morals4 ,nietzsche advises moralists to change their tactics3 8,deny moral values1 deprive them of the applause of the crowd1 create obstacles to their free circulation2 let them be the shame-faced secrets of a few solitary souls2 forbid morality6 ,in so doing you may perhaps accredit these things among the only men whom one need have on one's side1 ,i mean heroic men4 ,let it be said of morality to-day as ,meister ,eckard said3 #8,i pray ,god that he may rid me of ,god6'0 ,we have altogether over-estimated the importance of morality4 ,christianity knew better when it placed 8grace0 above morals1 and so also did ,buddhism4 ,and if we turn to literature1 ,nietzsche maintains1 it is a vast mistake to suppose that1 for instance1 great tragedies have1 or were intended to have1 any moral effect4 ,look at ,macbeth1 at ,tristan und ,isolde1 at dipus4 ,in all these cases it would have been easy to make guilt the pivot of the drama4 ,but the great poet is in love with passion4 8,he calls to us3 ,it is the charm of charms2 this exciting1 changing1 dangerous1 gloomy1 yet often sun-filled existence6 ,it is an adventure to live--take this side or that1 it will always be the same6' ,so he speaks to us out of a restless and vigorous time1 half drunken and dazed with excess of blood and energy1 out of a wickeder time than ours is2 and we are obliged to set to rights the aim of a ,shakespeare and make it righteous1 that is to say1 to misunderstand it40 ,we have to recognise a diversity of moral ideals4 ,nothing is more profoundly dangerous than1 with ,kant1 to create impersonal categorical imperatives after the ,chinese fashion1 to generalise 8virtue10 8duty10 and 8goodness10 and sacrifice them to the ,moloch of abstraction4 8,every man must find his own virtue1 his own categorical imperative20 it must be founded on inner necessity1 on deep personal choice4 ,only the simpleton says3 8,men ought to be like this or like that40 ,the real world presents to us a dazzling wealth of types1 a prodigious play of forms and metamorphoses4 ,yet up comes a poor devil of a moralist1 and says to us3 8,no6 men ought to be something quite different60 and straightway he paints a picture of himself on the wall1 and exclaims3 8,ecce homo60 ,but one thing is needful1 that a man should attain the fullest satisfaction4 ,every man must be his own moralist4 ,these views might be regarded as 8lax10 as predisposing to easy self-indulgence4 ,nietzsche would have smiled at such a notion4 ,not yielding1 but mastering1 was the key to his personal morality4 8,every day is badly spent10 he said1 8in which a man has not once denied himself2 this gymnastic is inevitable if a man will retain the joy of being his own master40 ,the four cardinal virtues1 as ,nietzsche understood morals1 are sincerity1 courage1 generosity1 and courtesy4 8,do what you will10 said ,zarathustra1 8but first be one of those who are able to will4 ,love your neighbour as yourself--but first be one of those who are able to love themselves40 ,and again ,zarathustra spoke3 8,he who belongs to me must be strong of bone and light of foot1 eager for fight and for feast1 no sulker1 no ,john o' ,dreams1 as ready for the hardest task as for a feast1 sound and hale4 ,the best things belong to me and mine1 and if men give us nothing1 then we take them3 the best food1 the purest sky1 the strongest thoughts1 the fairest women60 ,there was no desire here to suppress effort and pain4 ,that ,nietzsche regarded as a mark of modern ,christian morals4 ,it is pain1 more pain and deeper1 that we need4 ,the discipline of suffering alone creates man's pre-eminence4 8,man unites in himself the creature and the creator3 there is in him the stuff of things1 the fragmentary and the superfluous1 clay1 mud1 madness1 chaos2 but there is also in him the creator1 the sculptor1 the hardness of the hammer1 the divine blessedness of the spectator on the seventh day40 ,do you pity1 he asks1 what must be fashioned1 broken1 forged1 refined as by fire8 ,but our pity is spent on one thing alone1 the most effeminate of all weaknesses--pity4 ,this was the source of ,nietzsche's admiration for war1 and indifference to its horror2 he regarded it as the symbol of that spiritual warfare and bloodshed in which to him all human progress consisted4 ,he might1 had he pleased1 have said with the ,jew and the ,christian1 that without shedding of blood there shall be no remission of sins4 ,but with a difference1 for as he looked at the matter1 every man must be his own saviour1 and it is his own blood that must be shed2 there is no salvation by proxy4 ,that was expressed in his favourite motto3 ,virescit volnere virtus4 ,nietzsche's ideal man is the man of ,epictetus1 as he describes him in ,morgenrthe1 the laconic1 brave1 self-contained man1 not lusting after expression like the modern idealist4 ,the man whom ,epictetus loved hated fanaticism1 he hated notoriety1 he knew how to smile4 ,and the best was1 added ,nietzsche1 that he had no fear of ,god before his eyes2 he believed firmly in reason1 and relied1 not on divine grace1 but on himself4 ,of all ,shakespeare's plays ,julius ,csar seemed to ,nietzsche the greatest1 because it glorifies ,brutus2 the finest thing that can be said in ,shakespeare's honour1 ,nietzsche thought1 was that--aided perhaps by some secret and intimate experience--he believed in ,brutus and the virtues that ,brutus personified4 ,in course of time1 however1 while not losing his sympathy with ,stoicism1 it was ,epicureanism1 the heroic aspects of ,epicureanism1 which chiefly appealed to ,nietzsche4 ,he regarded ,epicurus as one of the world's greatest men1 the discoverer of the heroically idyllic method of living a philosophy2 for one to whom happiness could never be more than an unending self-discipline1 and whose ideal of life had ever been that of a spiritual nomad1 the methods of ,epicurus seemed to yield the finest secrets of good living4 ,socrates1 with his joy in life and in himself1 was also an object of ,nietzsche's admiration4 ,among later thinkers1 ,helvetius appealed to him strongly4 ,goethe and ,napoleon were naturally among his favourite heroes1 as were ,alcibiades and ,csar4 ,the latest great age of heroes was to him the ,italian ,renaissance4 ,then came ,luther1 opposing the rights of the peasants1 yet himself initiating a peasants' revolt of the intellect1 and preparing the way for that shallow plebeianism of the spirit which has marked the last two centuries4 ,latterly1 in tracing the genealogy of modern morals1 ,nietzsche's opinions hardened into a formula4 ,he recognised three stages of moral evolution3 first1 the pre-moral period of primitive times1 when the beast of prey was the model of conduct1 and the worth of an action was judged by its results4 ,then came the moral period1 when the worth of an action was judged not by its results1 but by its origin2 this period has been the triumph of what ,nietzsche calls slave-morality1 the morality of the mob2 the goodness and badness of actions is determined by atavism1 at best by survivals2 every man is occupied in laying down laws for his neighbour instead of for himself1 and all are tamed and chastised into weakness in order that they may be able to obey these prescriptions4 ,nietzsche ingeniously connected his slave-morality with the accepted fact that for many centuries the large1 fair-haired aristocratic race has been dying out in ,europe1 and the older down-trodden race--short1 dark1 and broad-headed--has been slowly gaining predominance4 ,but now we stand at the threshold of the extra-moral period4 ,slave-morality1 ,nietzsche asserted1 is about to give way to master-morality2 the lion will take the place of the camel4 ,the instincts of life1 refusing to allow that anything is forbidden1 will again assert themselves1 sweeping away the feeble negative democratic morality of our time4 ,the day has now come for the man who is able to rule himself1 and who will be tolerant to others not out of his weakness1 but out of his strength2 to him nothing is forbidden1 for he has passed beyond goodness and beyond wickedness4 ,,iii4 ,so far ,i have attempted to follow with little or no comment what seems to me the main current of ,nietzsche's thought4 ,it may be admitted that there is some question as to which is the main current4 ,for my own part ,i have no hesitation in asserting that it is the current which expands to its fullest extent between #ahgf and #ahhc in what ,i term ,nietzsche's second or middle period2 up to then he had not gained complete individuality2 afterwards began the period of uncontrolled aberrations4 ,thus ,i am inclined to pass lightly over the third period1 during which the conception of 8master-morality0 attained its chief and most rigid emphasis1 although ,i gather that to ,nietzsche's disciples as to his foes this conception seems of primary importance4 ,this idea of 8master-morality0 is in fact a solid fossilised chunk1 easy to handle for friendly or unfriendly hands4 ,the earlier and more living work--the work of the man who truly said that it is with thinkers as with snakes3 those that cannot shed their skins die--is less obviously tangible4 ,so the 8master-morality0 it is that your true ,nietzschian is most likely to close his fist over4 ,it would be unkind to say more1 for ,nietzsche himself has been careful to scatter through his works1 on the subject of disciples and followers generally1 very scathing remarks which must be sufficiently painful to any faithful ,nietzschian4 ,we are helped in understanding ,nietzsche's philosophic significance if we understand his precise ideal4 ,the psychological analysis of every great thinker's work seems to reveal some underlying fundamental image or thought--often enough simple and homely in character--which he has carried with him into the most abstract regions4 ,thus ,fraser has found good reason to suppose that ,hegel's main ideas were suggested by the then recent discovery of galvanism4 ,in ,nietzsche's case this key is to be found in the persistent image of an attitude4 ,as a child1 his sister tells us1 he had been greatly impressed by a rope-dancer who had performed his feats over the market-place at ,naumburg1 and throughout his work1 as soon as he had attained to real self-expression1 we may trace the image of the dancer4 8,i do not know10 he somewhere says1 8what the mind of a philosopher need desire more than to be a good dancer4 ,for dancing is his ideal1 his art also1 indeed his only piety1 his #8divine worship4'0 ,in all ,nietzsche's best work we are conscious of this ideal of the dancer1 strong1 supple1 vigorous1 yet harmonious and well-balanced4 ,it is the dance of the athlete and the acrobat rather than the make-believe of the ball-room1 and behind the easy equipoise of such dancing lie patient training and effort4 ,the chief character of good dancing is its union of the maximum of energetic movement with the maximum of well-balanced grace4 ,the whole muscular system is alive to restrain any excess1 so that however wild and free the movement may seem it is always measured2 excess would mean ignominious collapse4 ,when in his later years ,nietzsche began1 as he said1 to 8philosophise with the hammer10 and to lay about him savagely at every hollow 8idol0 within reach1 he departed from his better ideal of dancing1 and his thinking became intemperate1 reckless1 desperate4 ,nietzsche had no system1 probably because the idea that dominated his thought was an image1 and not a formula1 the usual obsession of philosophers1 such as may be clapped on the universe at any desired point4 ,he remarks in one place that a philosopher believes the worth of his philosophy to lie in the structure1 but that what we ultimately value are the finely carven and separate stones with which he builded1 and he was clearly anxious to supply the elaborated stones direct4 ,in time he came to call himself a realist1 using the term1 in no philosophic sense1 to indicate his reverence for the real and essential facts of life1 the things that conduce to fine living4 ,he desired to detach the 8bad conscience0 from the things that are merely wicked traditionally1 and to attach it to the things that are anti-natural1 anti-instinctive1 anti-sensuous4 ,he sought to inculcate veneration for the deep-lying sources of life1 to take us down to the bed-rock of life1 the rock whence we are hewn4 ,he held that man1 as a reality1 with all his courage and cunning1 is himself worthy of honour1 but that man's ideals are absurd and morbid1 the mere dregs in the drained cup of life2 or1 as he eventually said--and it is a saying which will doubtless seal his fate in the minds of many estimable persons--man's ideals are his only partie honteuse1 of which we may avoid any close examination4 ,nietzsche's 8realism0 was thus simply a vigorous hatred of all dreaming that tends to depreciate the value of life1 and a vivid sense that man himself is the ens realissimum4 ,a noteworthy point in ,nietzsche's conception of philosophy is his increasingly clear conception of its fundamentally psychological character4 ,i mean to say that ,nietzsche knows that a man's philosophy1 to be real1 must be the inevitable outcome of his own psychic constitution4 ,it is a point that philosophers have never seen4 ,perhaps ,nietzsche was the first1 however hesitatingly1 to realise it4 ,it is only in the recognition of this fact that the eirenicon of philosophies--and one might add1 of religions--can ever be found4 ,the philosopher of old said3 8,this is my conception of the universe20 it was well4 ,but he was apt to add3 8,it is the conception of the universe10 and so put himself hopelessly in the wrong4 ,it is as undignified to think another man's philosophy as to wear another man's cast-off clothes4 ,only the poor in spirit or in purse can find any satisfaction in doing either4 ,a philosophy or religion can only fit the man for whom it was made4 8,there has only been one ,christian10 as ,nietzsche put it1 8and he died on the cross40 ,but why waste energy in trying to manufacture a second ,christian8 ,we may be very sure that we can never find another ,christian whom ,christianity would fit so admirably as it once fitted ,christ4 ,why not rest content with ,christ8 ,let ,brown be a ,brownite and ,robinson a ,robinsonian4 ,it is not good that they should exchange their philosophies1 or that either should insist on thrusting his threadbare misfits on ,jones1 who prefers to be metaphysically naked4 ,when men have generally begun to realise this the world will be a richer and an honester world1 and a pleasanter one as well4 ,that ,nietzsche had vaguely begun to realise it seems to me his chief claim to distinction in the purely philosophic field4 ,to recognise the free and direct but disconnected nature of ,nietzsche's many-sided vision of the world is to lessen the force of his own antagonisms as well as of the antagonisms he has excited4 ,much of ,nietzsche's work1 especially in the third period1 is the utterance of profound half-truths1 keenly and personally felt1 but still half-truths of which he has himself elsewhere supplied the complements4 ,the reason is that during that period he was not so much expressing himself as appealing passionately against himself to those failing forces whose tonic influence he thirsted after4 ,the hardness1 the keen sword1 the reckless energy he idealised were the things that had slipped utterly away and left him defenceless to the world4 ,he grew to worship cruel strength as the consumptive ,keats1 the sickly ,thoreau1 loved beauty and health1 with 8the desire of the moth for the star40 ,such an attitude has its rightness and power1 so long as we understand it1 though it comes short of the serenity of the greatest spirits who seek1 like ,goethe1 to live at each moment in the whole4 ,the master-morality of ,nietzsche's later days1 on which friends and foes have alike insisted1 is a case in point4 ,this appears to have been hailed1 or resented1 as a death-blow struck at the modern democratic rgime4 ,to take a broad view of ,nietzsche's philosophic attitude is to realise that both views are alike out of place4 ,on this matter1 as on many others1 ,nietzsche moved in a line which led him to face an opposite direction in his decay from that which he faced in his immaturity4 ,he began by regarding democracy as the standard of righteousness1 and ended by asserting that the world only exists for the production of a few great men4 ,it would be foolish to regard either of the termini as the last outpost of wisdom4 ,but in the passage between these two points many excellent things are said by the way4 ,nietzsche was never enamoured of socialism or democracy for its own sake2 reasonably enough1 he will not even admit that we have yet attained democracy2 though the horses1 indeed1 are new1 as yet 8the roads are the same old roads1 the wheels the same old wheels40 ,but he points out that the value of democracy lies in its guarantee of individual freedom3 ,cyclopean walls are being built1 with much toil and dust1 but the walls will be a rampart against any invasion of barbarians or any new slavery1 against the despotism of capital and the despotism of party4 ,the workers may regard the walls as an end in themselves2 we are free to value them for the fine flowers of culture which will grow in the gardens they inclose4 ,to me1 at least1 this attitude of ,nietzsche's maturity seems the ample justification of democracy4 ,nietzsche was not1 however1 greatly interested in questions of government2 he was far more deeply interested in questions of morals4 ,in his treatment of morals--no doubt chiefly in the last period--there is a certain element of paradox4 ,it must again be pointed out that this is to be explained by the organic demands of ,nietzsche's own nature4 ,in attacking the excessive tendency to sympathy which he seemed to see around him he was hygienically defending himself from his own excessive sympathy4 ,his sister quotes with a smile the declaration that his ,paradise lay beneath the shadow of his sword2 we scarcely need her assurance of his tender-hearted sensitiveness4 ,he could attack relentlessly1 but he never attacked a person save as the symbol of what he regarded as a false principle held in undeserved honour4 ,when he realised that the subject of such attack was really a living person he was full of remorse4 ,he attacked ,strauss because ,strauss was the successful representative of a narrow ideal of culture2 a few months later ,strauss died1 having1 it now appears1 borne the onset philosophically enough1 and ,nietzsche was full of grief lest he had embittered the dying man's last hours4 ,it was because he had himself suffered from the excesses of his own sympathy that he was able so keenly to analyse the secrets of sympathy4 ,he spoke as the ,spanish poet says that every poet--and indeed every seer--must always speak1 por la boca de su herida1 through the mouth of his wound4 ,that is why his voice is often so poignantly intimate2 it is also why we sometimes find this falsetto note of paradox4 ,in his last period1 ,nietzsche grows altogether impatient of morals1 calls himself an immoralist1 fervently exhorts us to become wickeder4 ,but if any young disciple came to the teacher asking1 8,what must ,i do to become wickeder80 it does not appear that ,nietzsche bade him to steal1 bear false witness1 commit adultery1 or do any other of the familiar and commonly-accepted wickednesses4 ,nietzsche preached wickedness with the same solemn exaltation that ,carducci lauded ,satan4 ,what he desired was far indeed from any rehabilitation of easy vice2 it was the justification of neglected and unsanctified virtues4 ,at the same time1 and while ,nietzsche's immoralist is just as austere a person as the mere moralists who have haunted the world for many thousand years1 it is clear that ,nietzsche wished strictly to limit the sphere of morals4 ,he never fails to point out how large a region of life and art lies legitimately outside the moral jurisdiction4 ,in an age in which many moralists desire to force morals into every part of life and art--and even assume a certain air of virtue in so doing--the 8immoralist0 who lawfully vindicates any region for free cultivation is engaged in a proper and wholesome task4 ,no doubt1 however1 there will be some to question the value of such a task4 ,nietzsche the immoralist can scarcely be welcome in every camp1 although he remains always a force to be reckoned with4 ,the same may be said of ,nietzsche the freethinker4 ,he was1 perhaps1 the typical freethinker of the age that comes after ,renan4 ,nietzsche had nothing of ,renan's genial scepticism and smiling disillusionment2 he was less tender to human weakness1 for all his long ,christian ancestry less ,christian1 than the ,breton seminarist remained to the last4 ,he seems to have shaken himself altogether free of ,christianity--so free1 that except in his last period he even speaks of it without bitterness--though by no means wholly untouched by that nostalgia of the cloister which now and then pursues even those of us who are farthest from any faith in ,christian dogma4 ,he never sought1 as among ourselves ,pater sought1 the germ of ,christianity in things pagan1 the undying essence of paganism in things ,christian4 ,heathen as he was1 ,i do not think even ,heine's visions of the gods in exile could have touched him2 he never felt the charm of fading and faded things4 ,it is remarkable4 ,it is scarcely less remarkable that1 far as he was from ,christianity1 he was equally far from what we usually call 8paganism10 the pasteboard paganism of easy self-indulgence and cheerful irresponsibility4 ,it was not so that he understood ,hellenism4 ,matthew ,arnold once remarked that the ,greeks were never sick or sad4 ,nietzsche knew better4 ,the greater part of ,greek literature bears witness that the ,hellenes were for ever wrestling with the problems of pain4 ,and none who came after have more poignantly uttered the pangs of human affairs1 or more sweetly the consolations of those pangs1 than the great disciples of the ,greeks who created the ,roman world4 ,the classic world of nymphs and fauns is an invention of the moderns4 ,the real classic world1 like the modern world1 was a world of suffering4 ,the difference lay in the method of facing that suffering4 ,nietzsche chose the classic method from no desire to sport with ,amaryllis in the shade1 but because he had known forms of torture for which the mild complacencies of modern faith seemed to offer no relief4 ,if we must regard ,nietzsche as a pagan1 it is as the ,pascal of paganism4 ,the freethinker1 it is true1 was more cheerful and hopeful than the believer1 but there is the same tragic sincerity1 the same restless self-torment1 the same sense of the abyss4#d ,there still remains ,nietzsche1 the apostle of culture1 the philosopher engaged in the criticism of life4 ,from first to last1 wherever you open his books1 you light on sayings that cut to the core of the questions that every modern thinking man must face4 ,i take1 almost at random1 a few passages from a single book3 of convictions he writes that 8a man possesses opinions as he possesses fish1 in so far as he owns a fishing-net2 a man must go fishing and be lucky1 then he has his own fish1 his own opinions2 ,i speak of living opinions1 living fish4 ,some men are content to possess fossils in their cabinets--and convictions in their heads40 ,of the problem of the relation of science to culture he says well3 8,the best and wholesomest thing in science1 as in mountains1 is the air that blows there4 ,it is because of that air that we spiritual weaklings avoid and defame science20 and he points out that the work of science--with its need for sincerity1 infinite patience1 complete self-abnegation--calls for men of nobler make than poetry needs4 ,when we have learnt to trust science and to learn from it1 then it will be possible so to tell natural history that 8every one who hears it is inspired to health and gladness as the heir and continuer of humanity40 ,this is how he rebukes those foolish persons who grow impatient with critics3 8,remember that critics are insects who only sting to live and not to hurt3 they want our blood and not our pain40 ,and he utters this wise saying1 himself forgetting it in later years3 8,growth in wisdom may be exactly measured by decrease in bitterness40 ,nietzsche desires to prove nothing1 and is reckless of consistency4 ,he looks at every question that comes before him with the same simple1 intent1 penetrative gaze1 and whether the aspects that he reveals are new or old1 he seldom fails to bring us a fresh stimulus4 ,culture1 as he understood it1 consists for the modern man in the task of choosing the simple and indispensable things from the chaos of crude material which to-day overwhelms us4 ,the man who will live at the level of the culture of his time is like the juggler who must keep a number of plates spinning in the air2 his life must be a constant training in suppleness and skill so that he may be a good athlete4 ,but he is also called on to exert his skill in the selection and limitation of his task4 ,nietzsche is greatly occupied with the simplification of culture4 ,our suppleness and skill must be exercised alone on the things that are vital1 essential1 primitive2 the rest may be thrown aside4 ,he is for ever challenging the multifarious materials for culture1 testing them with eye and hand2 we cannot prove them too severely1 he seems to say1 nor cast aside too contemptuously the things that a real man has no need of for fine living4 ,what must ,i do to be saved8 ,what do ,i need for the best and fullest life8--that is the everlasting question that the teacher of life is called upon to answer4 ,and we cannot be too grateful to ,nietzsche for the stern penetration--the more acute for his ever-present sense of the limits of energy--with which he points from amid the mass to the things which most surely belong to our eternal peace4 ,nietzsche's style has often been praised4 ,the style was certainly the man4 ,there can be little doubt1 moreover1 that there is scarcely any other ,german style to compare with it1 though such eminence means far less in a country where style has rarely been cultivated than it would mean in ,france or even ,england4 ,sallust awoke his sense for style1 and may account for some characteristics of his style4 ,he also enthusiastically admired ,horace as the writer who had produced the maximum of energy with the minimum of material4 ,a concentrated ,roman style1 significant and weighty at every point1 re perennius1 was always his ideal4 ,certainly the philologist's aptitudes helped here to teach him the value and force of words1 as jewels for the goldsmith to work with1 and not as mere worn-out counters to slip through the fingers4 ,one may call it a muscular style1 a style wrought with the skilful strength of hand and arm4 ,it scarcely appeals to the ear4 ,it lacks the restful simplicity of the greatest masters1 the plangent melody1 the seemingly unconscious magic quivering along our finest-fibred nerves4 ,such effects we seem to hear now and again in ,schopenhauer1 but rarely or never from any other ,german4 ,this style is titanic rather than divine1 but the titanic virtues it certainly possesses in fullest measure3 robust and well-tempered vigour1 concentration1 wonderful plastic force in moulding expression4 ,it becomes over-emphatic at last4 ,when ,nietzsche threw aside the dancer's ideal in order to 8philosophise with the hammer10 the result on his style was as disastrous as on his thought2 both alike took on the violent and graceless character of the same implement4 ,he speaks indeed of the virtue of hitting a nail on the head1 but it is a less skilled form of virtue than good dancing4 ,whether he was dancing or hammering1 however1 ,nietzsche certainly converted the whole of himself into his work1 as in his view every philosopher is bound to do1 8for just that art of transformation is philosophy40 ,that he was entirely successful in being a 8real man0 one may doubt4 ,his excessive sensitiveness to the commonplace in life1 and his deficiency in the sexual instinct--however highly he may have rated the importance of sex in life--largely cut him off from true fellowship with the men who are most 8real0 to us4 ,he was less tolerant and less humane than his master ,goethe2 his incisive insight1 and1 in many respects1 better intellectual equipment1 are more than compensated by this lack of breadth4 ,but1 as his friend the historian ,burckhardt has said1 he worked mightily for the increase of independence in the world4 ,every man1 indeed1 works with the limitations of his qualities1 just as we all struggle beneath the weight of the superincumbent atmosphere2 our defects are even a part of our qualities1 and it would be foolish to quarrel with them4 ,nietzsche succeeded in being himself1 and it was a finely rare success4 ,whether he was a 8real man0 matters less4 ,with passionate sincerity he expressed his real self and his best self1 abhorring1 on the one hand1 what with ,voltaire and ,verlaine he called 8literature10 and1 on the other1 all that mere indigested material1 the result of mental dyspepsia1 of which he regarded ,carlyle as the supreme warning4 ,a man's real self1 as he repeated so often1 consists of the things which he has truly digested and assimilated2 he must always 8conquer0 his opinions2 it is only such conquests which he has the right to report to men as his own4 ,his thoughts are born of his pain2 he has imparted to them of his own blood1 his own pleasure and torment4 ,nietzsche himself held that suffering and even disease are almost indispensable to the philosopher2 great pain is the final emancipator of the spirit1 those great slow pains that take their time1 and burn us up like green wood4 8,i doubt whether such pain betters us10 he remarks1 8but ,i know that it deepens us40 ,that is the stuff of ,nietzsche's ,hellenism1 as expressed in the most lighthearted of his books4 ,virescit volnere virtus4 ,it is that which makes him1 when all is said1 a great critic of life4 ,it is a consolation to many--,i have seen it so stated in a respectable review--that ,nietzsche went mad4 ,no doubt also it was once a consolation to many that ,socrates was poisoned1 that ,jesus was crucified1 that ,bruno was burnt4 ,but hemlock and the cross and the stake proved sorry weapons against the might of ideas even in those days1 and there is no reason to suppose that a doctor's certificate will be more effectual in our own4 ,of old time we killed our great men as soon as their visionary claims became inconvenient2 now1 in our mercy1 we leave the tragedy of genius to unroll itself to the bitter close4 ,the devils to whom the modern ,faustus is committed have waxed cunning with the ages4 ,nietzsche has met1 in its most relentless form1 the fate of ,pascal and ,swift and ,rousseau4 ,that fact may carry what weight it will in any final estimate of his place as a moral teacher3 it cannot touch his position as an aboriginal force4 ,he remains in the first rank of the distinguished and significant personalities our century has produced4 ,,footnotes3 ,footnote #a3 ,this statement 7made at the end of #ahie7 has ceased to be true1 but it explains the genesis of this study1 and ,i leave it standing4 ,footnote #b3 ,the most convincing word-portrait of ,nietzsche ,i have met with 7by ,m4 ,schur7 dates from the visit to ,bayreuth3--8,i was struck both by the superiority of his intellect and the strangeness of his face4 ,a broad forehead1 short hair brushed back1 the prominent cheek-bones of the ,slav4 ,the heavy moustache and the bold outline of the face would have given him the aspect of a cavalry officer if it had not been for his timid and haughty air4 ,the musical voice and slow speech indicated the artist's organisation1 while the circumspect meditative carriage was that of a philosopher4 ,nothing more deceptive than the apparent calm of his expression4 ,the fixed eye revealed the painful travail of thought4 ,it was at once the eye of an acute observer and a fanatical visionary4 ,the double character of this gaze produced a disquieted and disquieting impression1 all the more so since it seemed to be always fixed on a single point4 ,in moments of effusion this gaze was softened to a dream-like sweetness1 but soon became hostile again40 ,this picture is confirmed by ,nietzsche's sister1 who also refers to his 8unusually large1 beautiful1 and brilliant eyes40 ,footnote #c3 ,one may be allowed to regret that ,nietzsche was not equally discriminating in his judgment of our country4 ,had he not been blinded by the spiritual plebeianism of the nineteenth century in ,england1 he might also have discerned in certain periods some of the same ardent and heroic qualities which he recognised in sixteenth century ,france1 the more easily since at that time the same ,renaissance wave had effected a considerable degree of spiritual union between ,france and ,england4 ,in ,george ,chapman1 for instance1 at his finest and lucidest moments the typical ethical representative of our greatest literary age1 ,nietzsche would have found a man after his own heart1 not only one who scarcely yielded to himself in generous admiration of the great qualities of the ,french spirit but a man of 8absolute and full soul0 who was almost a precursor of his own 8immoralism10 a lover of freedom1 of stoic self-reliance1 one who was ever seeking to enlarge the discipline of a fine culture in the direction of moral freedom and dignity4 ,footnote #d3 ,pater's description of the transition we may trace from the easy prose of ,pascal's first book to the 8perpetual agonia0 of his later work1 applies with scarcely a change to the similar transition in ,nietzsche3--8,everywhere in the ,letters he had seemed so great a master--a master of himself--never at a loss1 taking the conflict so lightly1 with so light a heart3 in the great ,atlantean travail of the ,thoughts his feet sometimes #8are almost gone4' ,in his soul's agony theological abstractions seem to become personal powers4444 ,in truth1 into his typical diagnosis1 as it may seem1 of the tragedy of the human soul1 there have passed not merely the personal feelings1 the temperament of an individual1 but his malady also1 a physical malady40 ,,casanova4 ,,there are few more delightful books in the world than ,casanova's ,mmoires4--,that is a statement ,i have long vainly sought to see in print4 ,it is true1 one learns casually that various eminent literary personages have cherished a high regard for this autobiography1 have even considered it the ideal autobiography1 that ,wendell ,holmes was once heard defending ,casanova1 that ,thackeray found him good enough to steal from4 ,but these eminent personages--and how many more we shall never know--locked up the secret of their admiration for this book in some remote casket of their breasts2 they never confided it to the cynical world4 ,every properly constituted 8man of letters0 has always recognised that any public allusion to ,casanova should begin and end with lofty moral reprobation of his unspeakable turpitude4 ,no doubt whatever--and this apart from the question as to whether his autobiography should be counted as moral or immoral literature--,casanova delivered himself bound into the hands of the moralists4 ,he recognised this2 his autobiography1 as he himself truly said1 was 8a confession1 if ever there was one40 ,but he wrote at the end of a long and full life1 in the friendly seclusion of a lonely ,bohemian castle1 when all things had become indifferent to him save the vivid memories of the past4 ,it mattered little to him that the whirlwind of #aghi had just swept away the eighteenth century together with the moral maxims that passed current in that century4 ,we have to accept these facts at the outset when we approach ,casanova4 ,and if a dweller in the highly respectable nineteenth century may be forgiven a first exclamation of horror at ,casanova's wickedness1 he has wofully failed in critical insight if he allows that exclamation to be his last word concerning these ,mmoires4 ,there are at least three points of view from which ,casanova's ,mmoires are of deep and permanent interest4 ,in the first place they constitute an important psychological document as the full and veracious presentation of a certain human type in its most complete development4 ,in the second place1 as a mere story of adventure and without reference to their veracity1 the ,mmoiries have never been surpassed1 and only equalled by books written on a much smaller scale4 ,in the third place1 we here possess an unrivalled picture of the eighteenth century in its most characteristic aspects throughout ,europe4 ,i4 ,casanova lived in an age which seems to have been favourable to the spontaneous revelation of human nature in literature4 ,it was not only the age in which the novel reached full development2 it was the age of diaries and autobiographies4 ,pepys1 indeed1 though he died in the eighteenth century1 had written his diary long before2 but during ,casanova's lifetime ,boswell was writing that biography which is so wonderful largely because it is so nearly an autobiography4 ,casanova's communicative countryman1 ,gozzi1 was also his contemporary4 ,rousseau's ,confessions only preceded ,casanova's ,mmoires by a few years1 and a little later ,restif de la ,bretonne wrote ,monsieur ,nicolas1 and ,madame ,roland her ,mmoires ,particulires4 ,all these autobiographies are very unlike ,casanova's4 ,they mostly seem to present the shady sides of otherwise eminent and respectable lives4 ,the highly-placed government official of versatile intellectual tastes exhibits himself as a monster of petty weaknesses2 the eloquent apostle of the return to ,nature uncovers the corroding morbidities we should else never suspect2 the philanthropic pioneer in social reform exposes himself in a state of almost maniacal eroticism2 the austere heroine who was nourished on ,plutarch confesses that she is the victim of unhappy passion4 ,we are conscious of no such discords in ,casanova's autobiography4 ,partly it may be because we have no other picture of ,casanova before our eyes4 ,moreover1 he had no conventional ideals to fall short of2 he was an adventurer from the first4 8,i am proud because ,i am nothing10 he used to say4 ,he could not boast of his birth2 he never held high position2 for the greatest part of his active career he was an exile2 at every moment of his life he was forced to rely on his own real and personal qualities4 ,but the chief reason why we feel no disturbing discord in ,casanova's ,mmoires lies in the admirable skill with which he has therein exploited his unquestionable sincerity4 ,he is a consummate master in the dignified narration of undignified experiences4 ,fortified1 it is true1 by a confessed and excessive amour propre1 he never loses his fine sense of equilibrium1 his power of presenting his own personality broadly and harmoniously4 ,he has done a few dubious things in his time1 he seems to say1 and now and again found himself in positions that were ridiculous enough2 but as he looks back he feels that the like may have happened to any of us4 ,he views these things with complete human tolerance as a necessary part of the whole picture1 which it would be idle to slur over or apologise for4 ,he records them simply1 not without a sense of humour1 but with no undue sense of shame4 ,in his heart1 perhaps1 he is confident that he has given the world one of its greatest books1 and that posterity will require of him no such rhetorical justification as ,rousseau placed at the head of his ,confessions4 ,in the preface to the ,mmoires1 ,casanova is sufficiently frank4 ,he has not scrupled1 he tells us1 to defraud fools and rascals1 8when necessary10 and he has never regretted it4 ,but such incidents have been but episodes in his life4 ,he is not a sensualist1 he says1 for he has never neglected his duty--8when ,i had any0--for the allurements of sense2 yet the main business of his life has ever been in the world of sense2 8there is none of greater importance40 8,i have always loved women and have done my best to make them love me4 ,i have also delighted in good cheer1 and ,i have passionately followed whatever has excited my curiosity40 ,now in old age he reviews the joys of his life4 ,he has learnt to be content with one meal a day1 in spite of a sound digestion1 but he recalls the dishes that delighted him3 ,neapolitan macaroni1 ,spanish olla podrida1 ,newfoundland cod1 high-flavoured game1 old cheese 7has he not collected material for a ,dictionnaire des ,fromages871 and without any consciousness of abrupt transition he passes on to speak of the fragrant sweetness of the women he had loved4 ,then with a smile of pity he turns on those who call such tastes depraved1 the poor insensate fools who think the ,almighty is only able to enjoy our sorrow and abstinence1 and bestows upon us for nought the gift of self-respect1 the love of praise1 the desire to excel1 energy1 strength1 courage1 and the power to kill ourselves when we will4 ,and with the strain of ,stoicism which is ever present to give fibre to his ,epicureanism1 he quotes the maxim which might well belong to both philosophies3 8,nemo lditur nisi a seipso40 ,the fact that ,casanova was on one side a ,venetian must count for something in any attempt to explain him4 ,not indeed that ,venice ever produced more than one ,casanova2 ,i would imply no such disrespect to ,venice--or to ,casanova--but the racial soil was favourable to such a personality4 ,the ,venetians are a branch of a more northern people who long since settled by the southern sea to grow mellow in the sunshine4 ,it suited them well1 for they expanded into one of the finest races in ,christendom1 and certainly one of the least ,christian races there1 a solid1 well-tempered race1 self-controlled and self-respecting4 ,the ,venetian genius is the genius of sensuous enjoyment1 of tolerant humanity1 of unashamed earthliness4 ,whatever was sane and stable in ,casanova1 and his instinctive distaste for the morbid and perverse1 he owes to his ,venetian maternal ancestry4 ,if it is true that he was not a mere sensualist1 it was by no means because of his devotion to duty--8when ,i had any10--but because the genuine sensualist is only alive on the passive side of his nature1 and in ,casanova's nervous system the development of the sensory fibres is compensated and held in balance by the equal vigour of the motor fibres2 what he is quick to enjoy he is strong and alert to achieve4 ,thus he lived the full and varied life that he created for himself at his own good pleasure out of nothing1 by the sole power of his own magnificent wits4 ,and now the self-sufficing ,venetian sits down to survey his work and finds that it is good4 ,it has not always been found so since4 ,a 8self-made0 man1 if ever there was one1 ,casanova is not revered by those who worship self-help4 ,the record of his life will easily outlive the largest fortune ever made in any counting-house1 but the life itself remains what we call a 8wasted0 life4 ,thrift1 prudence1 modesty1 scrupulous integrity1 strict attention to business--it is useless to come to ,casanova for any of these virtues4 ,they were not even in his blood2 he was only half ,venetian4 ,the ,casanova family was originally ,spanish4 ,the first ,casanova on record was a certain ,don ,jacobo1 of illegitimate birth1 who in the middle of the fifteenth century became secretary to ,king ,alfonso4 ,he fell in love with a lady destined to the religious life1 and the day after she had pronounced her vows he carried her off from her convent to ,rome1 where he finally obtained the forgiveness and benediction of the ,pope4 ,the son of this union1 ,don ,juan1 killed an officer of the ,king of ,naples1 fled from ,rome1 and sought fortune with ,columbus1 dying on the voyage4 ,don ,juan's son1 ,marcantonio1 secretary to a cardinal1 was noted in his day as an epigrammatic poet2 but his satire was too keen1 and he also had to flee from ,rome4 ,his son became a colonel1 and1 unlike his forefathers1 died peacefully1 in extreme old age1 in ,france4 ,in this soldier's grandson1 ,casanova's father1 the adventurous impulsiveness of the family again came out2 he ran away from home at nineteen with a young actress1 and himself became an actor2 subsequently he left the actress and then fell in love with a young ,venetian beauty of sixteen1 ,zanetta ,farusi1 a shoemaker's daughter4 ,but a mere actor could find no favour in a respectable family1 so the young couple ran away and were married2 the hero of these ,mmoires1 born on the #bnd ,april1 #agbe1 was their first-born4 ,there is probably no reason to doubt the substantial accuracy of this family history1 but if one desired to invent an ancestry for ,casanova he could scarcely better it4 ,his race helps to account for ,casanova1 but the real explanation of the man can only lie in his own congenital organisation4 ,that he was a radically abnormal person is fairly clear4 ,not that he was morbid either in body or mind4 ,on the contrary1 he was a man of fine presence1 of abounding health--always looking ten years younger than his age--of the most robust appetites1 a great eater1 who delighted to see others1 especially women1 eat heartily also1 a man of indubitable sexual vigour2 however great the demands he made upon his physical energy it seldom failed to respond1 and his capacity for rest was equally great2 he could sleep nineteen hours at a stretch4 ,his mental health was not less sound4 ,the most punctilious alienist1 with this frank and copious history before him1 could not commit ,casanova to an asylum4 ,whatever offences against social codes he may have committed1 ,casanova can scarcely be said to have sinned against natural laws4 ,he was only abnormal because so natural a person within the gates of civilisation is necessarily abnormal and at war with his environment4 ,far from being the victim of morbidities and perversities1 ,casanova presents to us the natural man in excelsis4 ,he was a man for whom the external world existed1 and who reacted to all the stimuli it presents to the healthy normal organism4 ,his intelligence was immensely keen and alert1 his resourcefulness1 his sagacious audacity1 his presence of mind1 were all of the first order4 ,he was equally swift to feel1 to conceive1 and to act4 ,his mental organisation was thus singularly harmonious1 and hence his success in gratifying his eager and immense appetite for the world1 an appetite unsatiated and insatiable even to the last1 or he would have found no pleasure in writing these ,mmoires4 ,casanova has been described as a psychological type of instability4 ,that is to view him superficially4 ,a man who adapts himself so readily and so effectively to any change in his environment or in his desires only exhibits the instability which marks the most intensely vital organisms4 ,the energy and ability which ,casanova displayed in gratifying his instincts would have sufficed to make a reputation of the first importance in any department1 as a popular statesman1 a great judge1 a merchant prince1 and enabled him to die worn out by the monotonous and feverish toil of the senate1 the court1 or the counting-house4 ,casanova chose to live4 ,a crude and barbarous choice it seems to us1 with our hereditary instinct to spend our lives in wasting the reasons for living4 ,but it is certain that ,casanova never repented his choice4 ,assuredly we need not1 for few judges1 statesmen1 or merchants have ever left for the joy of humanity any legacy of their toil equal to these ,mmoires4 ,but such swift energy of vital action and reaction1 such ardour of deed in keeping pace with desire1 are in themselves scarcely normal4 ,casanova's abnormality is suggested by the tendency to abnormality which we find in his family4 ,we have seen what men his ancestors were2 in reading the ,mmoires we gather incidentally that one of his brothers had married1 though impotent1 and another brother is described as a somewhat feeble-minded ne'er-do-well4 ,all the physical and mental potency of the family was intensely concentrated in ,casanova4 ,yet he himself in early childhood seems to have been little better than an idiot either in body or mind4 ,he could recall nothing that happened before he was eight years of age4 ,he was not expected to live2 he suffered from prolonged hmorrhages from the nose1 and the vision of blood was his earliest memory4 ,as a child he habitually kept his mouth open1 and his face was stupid4 8,thickness of the blood10 said the physicians of those days2 it seems probable that he suffered from growths in the nose which1 as we now know1 produce such physical and mental inferiority as ,casanova describes4 ,the cure was spontaneous4 ,he was taken to ,padua1 and shortly afterwards began to develop wonderfully both in stature and intelligence4 ,in after years he had little cause to complain either of health or intellect4 ,it is notable1 however1 that when1 still a boy1 he commenced his ecclesiastical training 7against his wishes1 for he had chosen to be a doctor71 he failed miserably as a preacher1 and broke down in the pulpit2 thus the ,church lost a strange ornament4 ,moreover1 with all his swift sensation and alert response1 there was in ,casanova an anomalous dulness of moral sensibility4 ,the insults to ,holy ,religion which seem to have brought him to that prison from which he effected his marvellous escape1 were scarcely the serious protests of a convinced heretic2 his deliberate trickery of ,mme4 d',urf was not only criminal but cruel4 ,his sense of the bonds of society was always somewhat veiled1 and although the veil never became thick1 and might be called the natural result of an adventurer's life1 one might also1 perhaps1 maintain that it was a certain degree of what is sometimes called moral imbecility that made ,casanova an adventurer4 ,but while we thus have to recognise that he was a man of dulled moral sensibility1 we must also recognise that he possessed a vigorous moral consciousness of his own1 or we misunderstand him altogether4 ,the point to be remembered is that the threshold of his moral sensibility was not easily reached4 ,there are some people whose tactile sensibility is so obtuse that it requires a very wide separation of the sthesiometer to get the right response4 ,it was so with ,casanova's moral sensitiveness4 ,but1 once aroused1 his conscience responded energetically enough4 ,it seems doubtful whether1 from his own point of view1 he ever fell into grave sin1 and therefore he is happily free from remorse4 ,no great credit is thus due to him2 the same psychological characteristic is familiar in all criminals4 ,it is not difficult to avoid plucking the apples of shame when so singularly few grow on your tree4 ,casanova's moral sensibility and its limits come out1 where a man's moral sensibility will come out1 in his relations with women4 ,women played a large part in ,casanova's life2 he was nearly always in love4 ,we may use the word 8love0 here in no euphemistic sense1 for although ,casanova's passions grew and ripened with the rapidity born of long experience in these matters1 so fresh is the vitality of the man that there is ever a virginal bloom on every new ardour4 ,he was as far removed from the cold-blooded libertine typified in ,laclos's ,valmont1 unscrupulously using women as the instruments of his own lust1 as from ,laura's sonneteering lover4 ,he had fully grasped what the latest writer on the scientific psychology of sex calls the secondary law of courting1 namely1 the development in the male of an imaginative attentiveness to the psychical and bodily states of the female1 in place of an exclusive attentiveness to his own gratification4 ,it is not impossible that in these matters ,casanova could have given a lesson to many virtuous husbands of our own highly moral century4 ,he never sank to the level of the vulgar maxim that 8all's fair in love and war40 ,he sought his pleasure in the pleasure1 and not in the complaisance1 of the women he loved1 and they seem to have gratefully and tenderly recognised his skill in the art of love-making4 ,casanova loved many women1 but broke few hearts4 ,the same women appear again and again through his pages1 and for the most part no lapse of years seems to deaden the gladness with which he goes forth to meet them anew4 ,that he knew himself well enough never to take either wife or mistress must be counted as a virtue1 such as it was1 in this incomparable lover of so many women4 ,a man of finer moral fibre could scarcely have loved so many women2 a man of coarser fibre could never have left so many women happy4 ,this very lack of moral delicacy which shuts ,casanova off from the finest human development is an advantage to the autobiographer4 ,it insures his sincerity because he is unconscious of offence2 it saves us from any wearisome self-justification1 because1 for all his amused self-criticism1 he sees no real need for justification4 ,in ,rousseau's ,confessions we hear the passionate pleader against men at the tribunal of ,god2 here we are conscious neither of opponent nor tribunal4 ,casanova is neither a pillar of society nor yet one of the moral ,samsons who delight to pull down the pillars of society2 he has taken the world as it is1 and he has taken himself as he is1 and he has enjoyed them both hugely4 ,so he is free to set forth the whole of himself1 his achievements1 his audacities1 his failures1 his little weaknesses and superstitions1 his amours1 his quarrels1 his good fortune and his bad fortune in the world that on the whole he has found so interesting and happy a place to dwell in4 ,and his book remains an unending source of delightful study of the man of impulse and action in all his moods4 ,the self-reliant man1 immensely apt for enjoyment1 who plants himself solidly with his single keen wit before the mighty oyster of the world1 has never revealed himself so clearly before4 ,what manner of man ,casanova seemed to his contemporaries has only been discovered of recent years2 and while the picture which we obtain of him has been furnished by his enemies1 and was not meant to flatter1 it admirably supports the ,mmoires4 ,in #agee a spy of the ,venetian ,inquisition reported that ,casanova united impiety1 imposture1 and wantonness to a degree that inspired horror4 ,it was in that same year that he was arrested1 chiefly on the charge of contempt for religion1 and sentenced to five years' imprisonment4 ,fifteen months later he had effected his famous escape1 and was able to pursue his career as an assured and accomplished adventurer who had brilliantly completed his apprenticeship4 ,it is not until many years later1 in #aggb1 when his long efforts to obtain pardon from his country still remained unsuccessful1 that we obtain an admirable picture of him from the ,venetian agent at ,ancona4 8,he comes and goes where he will10 the agent reports1 8with open face and haughty mien1 always well equipped4 ,he is a man of some forty years at most really about forty-eight1 thus confirming ,casanova's statement that he was always taken for some ten years younger than his years1 of lofty stature1 of fine and vigorous aspect1 with bright eyes and very brown skin4 ,he wears a short1 chestnut-coloured peruke4 ,i am told that his character is bold and disdainful1 but especially that he is full of speech1 and of witty and well-instructed speech40 ,two years later ,casanova was at last permitted to return to ,venice4 ,he there accepted the post of secret agent of the ,state ,inquisition for service within the city4 ,like ,defoe and ,toland1 who were also secret political agents1 he attempted to justify himself on grounds of public duty4 ,in a few years1 however1 he was dismissed1 perhaps1 as ,baschet suggests1 on account of the fact that his reports contained too much philosophy and not enough espionage2 probably it was realised that a man of such powerful individuality and independence was not fitted for servile uses4 ,finally1 in #aghb1 he was banished from ,venice for an offence to which the blood of the ,casanovas had always been easily inclined--he published an audacious satire against a patrician4 ,from ,venice he went to ,trieste1 and thence to ,vienna4 ,there he met ,count ,waldstein1 a fervent adept of ,kabbalistic science1 a subject in which ,casanova himself claimed to be proficient2 he had found it useful in certain dealings with credulous people4 ,in #aghd the count offered him the post of librarian1 with a salary of one thousand florins1 at his castle of ,dux1 in ,bohemia4 ,it is said to be a fine castle1 and is still noted for its charming park4 ,here this prince of ,bohemians spent the remainder of his life1 devoting seven years to the ,mmoires1 on which he was still engaged at his death4 ,a terra-cotta bust discovered at the castle 7and etched some years ago for ,le ,livre7 shows him in mature age1 a handsome1 energetic1 and imposing head1 with somewhat deep-set eyes2 it is by no means the head of a scamp1 but rather that of a philosopher1 a philosopher with unusual experience of affairs1 a successful statesman1 one might say4 ,a medallion portrait1 of later date1 which has also been reproduced1 shows him at the age of sixty-three with lean1 eager face1 and lofty1 though receding forehead1 the type of the man of quick perception and swift action1 the eagle type of man4 ,the ,prince de ,ligne has also left a description of him as he appeared in old age1 now grown very irritable1 ready to flare up at any imagined insult1 engaged in perpetual warfare with domestics1 but receiving the highest consideration from those who knew how to appreciate the great qualities of the man and his unequalled experiences1 and who knew also how to indulge his susceptibilities and smile at his antique fashions4 ,once he went off in a huff to ,weimar1 and was graciously received by the ,duke1 but he soon came back again2 all the favours there were showered on a certain court favourite1 one ,goethe4 ,it is clear1 as we read the ,prince de ,ligne's detailed description1 that the restless old adventurer had need1 even in the peaceful seclusion of ,dux1 of all the consolation yielded by ,socrates1 ,horace1 ,seneca1 and ,boethius1 his favourite philosophers4 ,here1 at ,dux1 on the #dth of ,june #agih1 ,casanova died4 8,bear witness that ,i have lived as a philosopher and die as a ,christian20 that1 we are told1 was his last utterance after he had received the sacraments4 ,from that moment ,casanova with everything that concerned him was covered by a pall of oblivion4 ,he seems to have been carelessly cast aside1 together with the century of which he was so characteristic1 and1 as it now appears1 so memorable a child4 ,the world in which he had lived so joyously and completely had been transformed by the ,revolution4 ,the new age of strenuous commercialism and complacent philanthropy was in its vigorous youth1 a sword in its right hand and a ,bible in its left4 ,the only adventurer who found favour now was he who took the glad news of salvation to the heathen1 or mowed them down to make new openings for trade4 ,had he been born later1 we may be well assured1 ,casanova would have known how to play his part2 he would not have fallen short of ,borrow1 who became an agent of the ,bible ,society4 ,but as it was1 what had the new age to do with ,casanova8 ,no one cared1 no one even yet has cared1 so much as to examine the drawers and cupboards full of papers which he left behind at ,dux4 ,only on the #acth of ,february1 #ahbj1 was the oblivion a little stirred4 ,on that date a certain ,carlo ,angiolieri appeared at ,leipzig in the office of the famous publisher1 ,brockhaus1 carrying a voluminous manuscript in the handwriting 7as we now know7 of ,casanova and bearing the title1 ,histoire de ma ,vie jusqu' l'an #agig4 ,but even the appearance of ,carlo ,angiolieri failed to dissipate the gloom4 ,fifty years more were to pass before the figure of ,casanova again became clear4 ,this man1 so ardently alive in every fibre1 had now become a myth4 ,the sagacious world--which imparts the largest dole of contempt to the pilgrim who brings back to it the largest gifts--refused to take ,casanova seriously4 ,the shrewd critic wondered who wrote ,casanova1 just as he has since wondered who wrote ,shakespeare4 ,paul ,lacroix paid ,stendhal the huge compliment of suggesting that he had written the ,mmoires1 a sufficiently ingenious suggestion1 for in ,stendhal's ,dauphiny spirit there is something of that love of adventure which is supremely illustrated in ,casanova4 ,but we now know that1 as ,armand ,baschet first proved1 ,casanova himself really wrote his own ,mmoires4 ,moreover1 so far as investigation has yet been able to go1 he wrote with strict regard to truth4 ,wherever it is possible to test ,casanova1 his essential veracity has always been vindicated4 ,in the nature of things it is impossible to verify much that he narrates4 ,when1 however1 we remember that he was telling the story of his life primarily for his own pleasure1 it is clear that he had no motive for deception2 and when we consider the surpassingly discreditable episodes which he has recorded1 we may recall that he has given not indeed positive proof of sincerity1 but certainly the best that can be given in the absence of direct proof4 ,it remains a question how far a man is able to recollect the details of the far past--the conversations he held1 the garments he wore1 the meals he ate--so precisely as ,casanova professes to recollect them4 ,this is a psychological problem which has not yet been experimentally examined4 ,there are1 however1 great individual differences in memory1 and there is reason to believe that an organisation1 such as ,casanova's1 for which the external world is so vivid1 is associated with memory-power of high quality4 ,that this history is narrated with absolute precision of detail ,casanova himself would probably not have asserted4 ,but there is no reason to doubt his good faith1 and there is excellent reason to accept the substantial accuracy of his narrative4 ,it remains a personal document of a value which will increase rather than diminish as time goes by4 ,it is one of the great autobiographical revelations which the ages have left us1 with ,augustine's1 ,cellini's1 ,rousseau's1 of its own kind supreme4 ,,ii4 ,the ,mmoires are authentic2 they give us what they profess to give us--the true story of a man who unites 7as it has been well said7 the characters of ,gil ,blas and of ,figaro4 ,thus ,casanova was the incarnation in real life of the two most typical imaginative figures of his century4 ,yet even if the ,mmoires had been the invention of some novelist of surpassing genius they would still possess extraordinary interest4 ,we may forget that the book is an autobiography1 and still find it1 as a story of adventure1 the apotheosis of the picaresque novel4 ,the picaresque novel--although a ,frenchman brought it to perfection in ,gil ,blas--arose and flourished in ,spain1 ,casanova's ancestral country1 and its piquancy1 variety1 and audacity seem to have been very congenial to the ,spanish spirit and the ,spanish soil4 ,casanova's ,mmoires carry this form of story on to a broader and in some respects higher plane4 ,the old picaro never dared affront the world2 he cringed before it and slunk behind its back to make grimaces4 ,casanova1 too1 was an adventurer living by his wits1 but he approached the world with the same self-confidence as he approached a beautiful woman1 and having won its favours treats it with the same consideration4 ,unlike the picaro whose delight it is to reveal the pettinesses of the men he has duped1 ,casanova shows his magnificence in adventure by regarding the world as a foeman worthy of all his courtesy2 and with incomparable impartiality1 as well as skill1 he presents to us the narrative of all the perils he encountered or sought4 ,few old men sitting down in the evening of their days to chatter of old times have been so free as ,casanova from the vices of senile literature4 ,he never maunders of the things that are so dear to the aged merely because they are past2 he introduces no superfluous reflections or comments4 ,we recognise that the hand which keeps this pen so surely to the point is the hand of a man of action4 ,casanova's skill in narrative is conspicuously shown in the love-adventures which form so large and important a part of his book1 as of his life4 7,men usually regard love as a bagatelle1 he says somewhere1 but1 for his own part1 he adds1 he has found no more important business in life47 ,there would seem to be nothing so difficult as to tell a long series of amours1 unshrinkingly1 from first to last1 without drawing a curtain at any stage4 ,nearly every writer in fiction or in autobiography who has attempted this has only produced an effect of weary monotony or else of oppressive closeness4 ,but ,casanova succeeds4 ,partly this is due to the variety and individuality he is able to give1 not only to every incident1 but to every woman he meets2 so that his book is a gallery of delightful women1 drawn with an art that almost recalls his great contemporary1 ,goethe4 ,partly it seems he was aided by his vivid and sympathetic ,venetian temperament2 his swift1 unliterary style finds time for no voluptuous languors4 ,he was aided even by his immodesty1 for in literature as in the plastic arts and in life itself1 the nude is nearer to virtue than the dcollet4 ,the firm and absolute precision of every episode in these ,mmoires leaves no room for any undue dallying with the fringes of love's garments4 ,casanova tells his story swiftly and boldly1 with no more delay than is needed to record every essential detail2 he is the absolute anti-type to ,sterne as a narrator2 the most libertine of authors1 he is yet free from prurience4 ,thus the man of action covers the romancer with confusion2 this supreme book of adventures is a real man's record of his own real life4 ,but let us forget that it is an autobiography and take it merely as a story4 ,its immense range of human interest1 its audacious realism1 its freedom from perversity1 entitle us to regard it as a typical story of adventure4 ,and ,i ask myself3 ,what is the relation of such a book to life8 what is the moral worth of ,casanova's ,mmoires8 ,a foolish1 superfluous question1 ,i know1 it seems to many4 ,and ,i am willing to admit that there may possibly be things in life which it is desirable to do1 and yet undesirable to moralise over2 ,i would even assert that the moral worth of many of our actions lies precisely in their unconsciousness of any moral worth4 ,yet beneath the freest moral movements there must be a solid basis of social law1 just as beneath the most gracious movements of the human body there lies the regulated play of mechanical law4 ,when we find it assumed that there are things which are good to do and not good to justify we may strongly suspect that we have come across a mental muddle4 ,to see the matter rightly we must take it at the beginning4 ,no one can rightly see the moral place of immoral literature--the literature of adventure--in the case of adults unless he sees it in the case of children4 ,of late years the people who write in newspapers and magazines have loudly abused all stories of the crudely heroic order1 the stories of impossible virtue and unheard-of villainy in far-away lands1 of marvellously brave bands under extravagantly reckless leaders1 who march on through careless bloodshed to incredible victory or incalculable treasure4 ,the hero of the average boy--magnificent sombrero on head1 pistols in belt1 galloping off on his mighty charger1 a villain grasped by the scruff of the neck in each outstretched hand--has been severely mauled4 ,the suggestions offered for the displacement of this literature furnish documents for the psychologist4 ,let us have cheap lives of ,jesus and the ,apostle ,paul6 let us flood the world with the sober romances licensed by religious societies6--say those good people in the newspapers and the magazines4 ,if they have ever themselves been children1 and if so1 how they came into the world shrouded in an impenetrable caul which will for ever shut them out from insight into the hearts of the young1 is not known1 and perhaps is no matter4 ,putting aside these estimable persons1 there is in every heart a chamber dedicated to the impossible1 and the younger the heart the larger is this golden ventricle4 ,for the child who can just read1 ,jack the ,giant-killer1 and the story of those human-souled swans which make the swan a mystic bird for all our lives1 are better worth knowing than any fact of the visible world4 ,some day the ,life of ,jesus1 and even perhaps the ,life of ,paul1 will seem to be among the sweetest and strangest of the world's fairy-tales2 but that day will hardly come until every church and chapel has been spiritually razed to the ground4 ,it cannot come to the generation which has had the name of ,jesus thrust down its throat in ,sunday-schools and board-schools4 ,we ,english are a practical1 common-sense people1 and we cure our children of any hearty taste for religion as confectioners are said to cure their assistants of any excessive taste for sweets1 by a preliminary surfeit4 ,no doubt we are very wise1 but we postpone indefinitely the day when children will come to our religious tales in the pure gladness of their joy in the marvellous4 ,in the meantime there ought not to be any doubt that children should be fed on fairy-tales as their souls' most natural food4 ,nothing can make up for the lack of them at the outset1 just as no later supply of milk can compensate for the starvation involved in feeding infants on starch4 ,the power of assimilating fairy-tales is soon lost1 and unless the child has a rarely powerful creative imagination its spiritual growth on this side at least remains for ever stunted4 ,if then childhood needs its pure fairy-land1 and youth its fairy-land of impossible adventure1 what fairy-land is left for adult age8 ,scarcely the novel4 ,the modern novel in its finest manifestations1 however engrossingly interesting1 takes us but a little step from the passionate interests of our own lives4 ,if ,i turn to the two recent novels which have most powerfully interested me--,huysmans' ,en ,route and ,hardy's ,jude the ,obscure--,i find that their interest lies largely in the skill with which they present and concentrate two mighty problems of actual life1 the greatest of all problems1 religion and sex4 ,in adult life we seek a fairy-land occupied by beings at once as real as ourselves1 and yet far removed from the sphere of our own actual interests and the heavy burden of the atmosphere under which we live2 only so can it fascinate the imaginations of those who have outgrown the simple imaginative joys of early life4 ,casanova's ,mmoires is the perfected type of the books which answer these requirements4 ,it is unflinchingly real1 immensely varied1 the audaciously truthful narrative of undeniably human impulses4 ,and yet it carries us out of relation with the problems of our actual life2 it leads us into the realm of fairy-land4 ,but--analysing the matter a little more closely--it may still fairly be asked whether a book which1 in spite of its remoteness1 represents a form of human life1 must not have a certain bearing on morals4 ,is not a part of its attraction1 and indeed that of all fairy-lands1 the existence of a different code of morals8 ,it seems to me that this is so4 ,but precisely in that lies the moral value of such literature4 ,indeed the whole question of the moral value of art--that is to say1 of sthetic enjoyment--is really involved here4 ,the matter is worth looking into4 ,it is one of ,schopenhauer's unforgettable sayings1 that whatever course of action we take in life there is always some element in our nature which could only find satisfaction in an exactly contrary course2 so that1 take what road we will1 we yet always remain restless and unsatisfied in part4 ,to ,schopenhauer that reflection made for pessimism2 it need not4 ,the more finely and adequately we adjust ourselves to the actual conditions of our life the larger1 no doubt1 the unused and unsatisfied region within us4 ,but it is just here that art comes in4 ,art largely counts for its effects on playing on these unused fibres of our organism1 and by so doing it serves to bring them into a state of harmonious satisfaction--moralises them1 if you will4 ,alienists have described a distressing form of insanity peculiar to old maids who have led honourable lives of abstinence and abnegation4 ,after years of seeming content with the conditions of their lot they begin to manifest uncontrollable obsessions and erotic impulses2 the unused elements of life1 which they had shut down in the cellars of their souls and almost forgotten1 have at last arisen in rebellion1 clamouring tumultuously for satisfaction4 ,the old orgies--the ,saturnalian festival at ,christmas and the ,midsummer ,festival on ,st4 ,john's ,day--bear witness that the ancients in their wisdom recognised that the bonds of the actual daily moral life must sometimes be relaxed lest they break from over-tension4 ,we have lost the orgy1 but in its place we have art4 ,our respectable matrons no longer send out their daughters with torches at midnight into the woods and among the hills1 where dancing and wine and blood may lash into their flesh the knowledge of the mysteries of life1 but they take them to ,tristan1 and are fortunately unable to see into those carefully brought-up young souls on such occasions4 ,the moralising force of art lies1 not in its capacity to present a timid imitation of our experiences1 but in its power to go beyond our experience1 satisfying and harmonising the unfulfilled activities of our nature4 ,that art should have such an effect on those who contemplate it is not surprising when we remember that1 to some extent1 art has a similar influence on its creators4 8,libertin d'esprit mais sage de murs10 it was said of ,watteau4 ,mohammed when he wrote so voluptuously of the black-eyed houris of ,paradise was still young and the blameless husband of an aged woman4 8,singing is sweet2 but be sure of this1 ,lips only sing when they cannot kiss40 ,it has been said of ,wagner that he had in him the instincts of an ascetic and of a satyr1 and the first is just as necessary as the second to the making of a great artist4 ,it is a very ancient observation that the most unchaste verse has often been written by the chastest poets1 and that the writers who have written most purely have found their compensation in living impurely4#e ,in the same manner it has always been found in ,christendom1 both among ,catholics and ,protestants1 that much of the most licentious literature has been written by the clergy1 by no means because the clergy are a depraved class1 but precisely because the austerity of their lives renders necessary for them these emotional athletics4 ,of course1 from the standpoint of simple nature1 such literature is bad1 it is merely a form of that obscenity which1 as ,huysmans has acutely remarked1 can1 only be produced by those who are chaste2 in ,nature desire passes swiftly into action1 leaving little or no trace on the mind4 ,a certain degree of continence--,i do not mean merely in the region of sex but in the other fields of human action also--is needed as a breeding-ground for the dreams and images of desire to develop into the perfected visions of art4 ,but the point of view of society is scarcely that of unadulterated nature4 ,in society we have not always room for the swift and free passage of impulse into action2 to avoid the evils of repressed impulse this play of the emotions on a higher and serener plane becomes essential4 ,just as we need athletics to expand and harmonise the coarser unused energies of the organism1 so we need art and literature to expand and harmonise its finer energies1 emotion being1 as it may not be superfluous to point out1 itself largely a muscular process1 motion in a more or less arrested form1 so that there is here more than a mere analogy4 ,art from this point of view is the athletics of the emotions4 ,the adventures of fairy-land--of which for our age ,i take ,casanova's ,mmoires as the type--constitute an important part of this athletics4 ,it may be abused1 just as we have the grosser excesses of the runner and the cyclist2 but it is the abuse and not the use which is pernicious1 and under the artificial conditions of civilisation the contemplation of the life and adventures of the heroically natural man is an exercise with fine spiritual uses4 ,such literature thus has a moral value3 it helps us to live peacefully within the highly specialised routine of civilisation4 ,that is the underlying justification for ,casanova's ,mmoires as moral literature4 ,but there is no reason why it should emerge into consciousness when we take up these ,mmoires1 any more than a man need take up a branch of physical athletics with any definite hygienic aim4 ,it is sufficient to be moved by the pure enjoyment of it4 ,and there must be something unwholesome and abnormal--something corrupt at the core--in any civilised man or woman who cannot win some enjoyment from this book4 ,,iii4 ,the more ,i contemplate the eighteenth century the more interesting ,i find it4 ,in my youth it seemed to me unworthy of a glance4 ,the books and the men1 ,shelley above all1 who stirred my young blood belonged to the early nineteenth century4 ,i was led to regard the last century as a dull period of stagnation and decay1 a tomb into which the spirit of man sank after the slow death which followed the ,renaissance4 ,the dawn of the nineteenth century was an ,easter ,day of the human soul1 rising from the sepulchre and flinging aside the old eighteenth century winding-sheet4 ,i have nothing yet to say against the early nineteenth century1 which was indeed only the outcome of the years that went before1 but ,i have gained a new delight in the men of the eighteenth century4 ,it was in that age that the ,english spirit found its most complete intellectual expression1 unaffected by foreign influence4 ,when that spirit1 reviving after the wars that lamentably cut short the development of ,chaucer's magnificent song1 again began its free literary development--no doubt with some stimulus from ,humanism--it was suddenly smothered at birth by the ,renaissance wave from ,italy and ,france4 ,we may divine how it would have developed independently if we think of ,john ,heywood's dramatic sketches--pale as those are after the ,miller's tale in which for the first and last time ,chaucer perfectly mated ,english realism to the lyric grace of ,english idealism--and to some extent1 also1 when we turn to the later ,heywood's plays1 or ,dekker's1 and especially to the robust and tolerant humanity1 the sober artistic breadth of the one play of ,porter's which has come down to us4 ,but the intoxicating melodies of ,ronsard and his fellows were heard from over sea1 and the men of the ,english ,renaissance arose--,lyly and ,lodge and ,campion with their refinements1 ,greene and ,nash with their gay and brilliant music1 ,marlowe with his arrogant1 irresistible energy--and brought to birth an absolutely new spirit1 which may have been ,english enough in its rich and virginal elements1 but received the seminal principle from abroad4 ,it needed a century and more for that magnificent tumult to subside1 and for the old ,english spirit to reappear and reach at last full maturity1 by happy chance again in association with ,france1 though this time it is ,england that chiefly plays the masculine part and impregnates ,france4 ,thus the eighteenth century was an age in which the ,english spirit found complete self-expression1 and also an age in which ,england and ,france joined hands intellectually1 and stood together at the summit of civilisation1 with no rivals1 unless ,goethe and ,kant may suffice to stand for a whole people4 ,in the great ,englishmen of these days we find the qualities which are truly native to ,britain1 and which have too often been torn and distracted by insane aberrations4 ,there is a fine sobriety and sagacity in the ,english spirit1 a mellow human solidity1 such as the ,romans possessed always1 but which we in our misty and storm-swept island have often exchanged1 perhaps for better1 but certainly for other qualities4 ,it was not so in the eighteenth century1 and by no accident the historian who has most finely expressed the genius of ,rome was an eighteenth century ,englishman4 ,all the most typical men of that age possessed in varying degree the same qualities3 ,locke1 ,swift1 ,fielding1 ,hume1 ,richardson1 ,goldsmith1 ,hogarth1 ,johnson1 ,godwin4 ,thus the eighteenth century should undoubtedly be a source of pride to the ,british heart4 ,england's reputation in the world rests largely on our poetic aptitudes and our political capacity4 ,eighteenth century ,england is not obviously pre-eminent in either respect1 although it was the great age of our political development and the seed-time of our second great poetic age2 it produced scarcely more than a single first-class poet exclusively within its limits1 and it lost ,america4 ,yet our greatest philosopher1 our greatest historian1 our greatest biographer1 nearly all our greatest novelists1 our great initiators in painting1 who were indirectly the initiators of the greater art of ,france1 belong wholly to this century1 and an unequalled cluster of our greatest poets belongs to its close4 ,and these men were marked by sanity and catholicity1 a superb solidity of spirit2 they became genuinely cosmopolitan without losing any of their indigenous virtues4 ,without the eighteenth century we should never have known many of the greatest qualities which are latent1 and too often only latent1 in our race4 ,landor and ,wordsworth alone were left to carry something of the spirit of the ,english eighteenth century far on into the literature of our own wholly alien century4 ,and their brothers of ,france were their most worthy peers4 ,this spirit1 indeed1 which we see so conspicuously in the finest men of their age in ,england and ,france1 was singularly widespread throughout ,europe1 a cheerful sobriety1 a solid humanity1 little troubled by any of those 8movements0 which were to become so prolific and so noisy in the next century4 ,christianity1 it seemed1 was decaying4 ,diderot1 well informed on ,english affairs1 wrote to a friend that in a few years it would be extinct1 and looking at the state of the ,english ,church at that time1 no one could reasonably have surmised that ,zinzendorf in ,germany1 and after him ,wesley in ,england on a lower plane and ,law on a higher plane1 had already initiated that revival of ,christianity which in our own century was destined to work itself out so obstreperously4 ,but the world seemed none the worse for the apparent subsidence of ,christianity2 in the opinion of many it seemed to be very much the better4 ,the tolerant paganism of classic days appeared to be reasserting itself1 robustly in ,england1 with a delicate refinement in ,france1--setting the paganism of ,watteau against the paganism of ,fielding--while ,goethe and the ,germans generally were striving to rescue and harmonise the best of ,christianity with the best of antiquity4 ,european civilisation was fully expanded2 for a long time no great disturbing force had arisen1 and though on every side the tender buds of coming growths might have been detected1 they could not yet reveal their strength4 ,such a period certainly has its terrible defects2 mellowness is not far from rottenness4 ,but then youth also has its defects1 and its crude acidity is still further from perfection4 ,the nineteenth century has a higher moral standard than the eighteenth1 so at least we in our self-righteousness have been accustomed to think4 ,but even if so1 the abstract existence of a high moral standard is another thing from the prevalence of high moral living4 ,whatever the standard may be1 it is a question whether the lives are much different4 ,in the one case the standard is much above the practice1 in the other only a little above it--that is the chief difference4 ,and the advantages of winding the standard up to the higher pitch are not so unmixed as is sometimes assumed4 ,one need not question these advantages1 well recognised in the present century4 ,but the advantages of a lower standard are less often recognised4 ,there is especially the great advantage that we attain a higher degree of sincerity1 and sincerity1 if not itself the prime virtue1 is surely1 whatever the virtue may be1 its chief accompaniment4 ,a life that is swathed and deformed in much drapery is not so wholesome or so effective as one that can live nearer to the sun4 ,and the unrecognisable villain is most pernicious2 the brigand who holds a revolver at your head is better than the sleek and well-dressed thief who opens the proceedings with prayer4 ,the eighteenth has been called a gross and unintelligent century4 ,in the department of criticism1 indeed1 this century in ,england 7for it was far otherwise in ,germany7 comes very short of our own century1 and it is largely this failure to measure the precise value of things in sthetic perception which now makes that age seem so shocking4 ,from this point of view every great age--and not least our own greatest ,elizabethan age--is equally defective4 ,a period of energetic life cannot afford to spend much time on the solitary contemplation of its own bowels of sthetic emotion4 ,to produce a ,pater is the one exquisite function of a spiritually barren and exhausted age4 ,and still the eighteenth century redeems its critical grossness by making even this later development possible2 it lifted the man of letters from the place of a dependent to the place of a free man boldly prophesying in his own right2 and1 moreover1 it was the first century which dared to claim the complete equality of men and women with all which that involves4 ,if it has required a certain insight for the child of our own century to discover the great qualities of the last century1 there cannot be much doubt about the final judgment of the most competent judges4 ,the eighteenth was1 as ,renouvier has called it1 the first century of humanity since ,christ1 while at the same time1 as ,lange has said1 it was penetrated through by the search for the ideal1 or1 as a more recent thinker concludes1 it was a century dominated by the maxim ,salus populi suprema est lex1 holding in its noble aspirations after general happiness the germs of all modern socialism4 ,in art and literature it saw the fresh spring of those blossoms which opened so splendidly and faded so swiftly in our century2 it was the century not only of ,hogarth and ,fielding and ,voltaire1 but of ,blake and ,rousseau1 of ,diderot1 of ,swedenborg and ,mesmer1 of the development of modern music with ,mozart and ,beethoven1 of the unparalleled enthusiasm awakened by the discovery of the ,keltic world4 ,and as its crowning glory the eighteenth century claims ,goethe4 ,men will scarcely look back to our own century as so good to live in4 ,one may well say that he would have gladly lived in the thirteenth century1 perhaps the most interesting of all since ,christ1 or in the sixteenth1 probably the most alive of all1 or the eighteenth1 surely the most human4 ,but why have lived in the nineteenth1 the golden age of machinery1 and of men used as machines8 ,eighteenth century ,europe1 being what it was1 formed a perfect stage for ,casanova to play his part on4 ,with his ,spanish and ,italian blood1 he was of the race of those who had come so actively to the front in the last days of old classic ,rome1 and his immediate ancestors had lived in the centre of the pagan ,rome of the ,renaissance4 ,thus he carried with him traditions which consorted well with much in the eighteenth century4 ,and he had that in him1 moreover1 which no tradition can give1 the incommunicable vitality in the presence of which all tradition shrivels into nothingness4 ,casanova knew not only ,italy1 ,france1 ,england1 ,germany1 and ,holland2 he had visited ,spain1 ,russia1 ,poland1 ,greece1 ,turkey1 and ,asia ,minor4 ,he was received by ,benedict ,,xii41 by ,frederick ,,ii4 of ,prussia1 by the ,empress ,catherine1 by ,joseph ,,ii4 ,he was at home in ,paris1 in ,london1 in ,berlin1 in ,vienna2 he knew ,munich1 ,dresden1 ,moscow1 ,st4 ,petersburg1 ,warsaw1 ,barcelona4 ,his picture of ,london is of great interest4 ,he spent much of the year #agfc there1 and some of his most interesting experiences1 romantic and psychological1 occurred during that period4 ,he even dated the close of what he calls the second act in the comedy of his life from that visit to ,london1 the next and concluding act being one of slow declination4 ,so profound was his depression at this time that one day he went towards the ,thames at the ,tower with the deliberate intention of drowning himself1 having first filled his pockets with bullets to ensure sinking4 ,fortunately an ,english friend 7to whom the world owes thanks7 met him on the way1 read his resolve in his face1 and insisted on carrying him off to a very convivial party1 whose indecorous proceedings1 although ,casanova only remained a passive witness1 served to dissipate all thoughts of suicide4 ,he is not1 however1 prejudiced against ,england2 on the contrary1 he finds that no nation offers so many interesting peculiarities to the attentive observer4 ,as usual1 in ,london ,casanova mixed indiscriminately with the best and the worst society2 his wit1 his knowledge1 his imperturbable effrontery1 his charming conversation1 served to open any door that he desired to open4 ,he gives us curious glimpses into the lives of ,english noblemen of the day1 and not less intimate pictures of the chevaliers d'industrie who preyed upon them4 ,in the course of one adventure with people of the latter sort he was haled before the eminent blind magistrate ,sir ,john ,fielding1 whom he seems to have mistaken1 though this is not quite clear1 for his yet more eminent brother ,henry4 ,he also met ,kitty ,fischer1 the most fashionable cocotte of her day1 whom we may yet see as ,reynolds caught her in a well-inspired moment1 dilating her sensitive nostrils1 radiantly inhaling the joy of life1 and he tells us anecdotes of her extravagance1 of the jewels she wore1 of the thousand guinea banknote which she ate in a sandwich4#f ,throughout ,europe ,casanova knew many of the most celebrated people of his time1 though it is clear--as one would expect from a man of his impartial humanity--he seldom went out of his way to meet them4 ,his visit to ,voltaire is a distinct contribution to our knowledge of that sage2 he admired ,helvetius1 and wondered how a man of so many virtues could have denied virtue2 ,d',alembert he thought the most truly modest man he had ever met1 an interesting tribute from the most truly immodest man of that period4 ,the value of ,casanova's record of the eighteenth century lies1 however1 by no means in the glimpses he has given us of great personalities3 that has been much better done by much more insignificant writers4 ,it is as a picture of the manners and customs of the eighteenth century throughout ,europe that the ,mmoires are invaluable4 ,casanova saw ,europe from the courts of kings to the lowest bas fonds4 ,he lived in the castles of ,french and ,italian nobles1 in the comfortable homes of ,dutch merchants1 in his own house in ,pall ,mall1 in taverns and inns and peasants' cottages anywhere4 ,he had no intellectual prejudices1 he had an immense versatility in tastes and practical aptitudes1 he was genuinely interested in all human things4 ,thus he approached life with no stereotyped set of opinions1 but with all the aloofness of an unclassed adventurer1 who was at the same time a scholar and a man of letters4 ,it can scarcely be that there is any record to compare with this as a vivid and impartial picture of the eighteenth century1 in its robust solidity1 its cheerful and tolerant scepticism1 its serene and easy gaiety1 its mellow decay4 ,that is our final debt to this unique and immortal book4 ,what should be our last word about ,casanova8 ,it is true that although--if indeed one should not say because--he was so heroically natural ,casanova was not an average normal man4 ,it is scarcely given to the average man to expend such versatile and reckless skill in the field of the world1 or to find so large a part wherein to play off that skill4 ,but neither are the saints and philosophers normal2 ,st4 ,bernard was not normal1 nor yet ,spinoza4 ,and surely it is a poor picture of the world which would show us ,st4 ,bernard and ,spinoza and shut out ,casanova4 8,vous avez l'outil universel10 ,fabrice said to ,gil ,blas4 ,casanova's brain was just such a tool of universal use1 and he never failed to use it4 ,for if you would find the supreme type of the human animal in the completest development of his rankness and cunning1 in the very plenitude of his most excellent wits1 ,i know not where you may more safely go than to the ,mmoires of the self-ennobled ,jacques ,casanova ,chevalier de ,seingalt4 ,,footnotes3 ,footnote #e3 ,i take the first example which comes to hand1 for whatever it may be worth3--8,luttrell was talking of ,moore and ,rogers--the poetry of the former so licentious1 that of the latter so pure2 much of its popularity owing to its being so carefully weeded of everything approaching to indelicacy2 and the contrast between the lives and the works of the two men--the former a pattern of conjugal and domestic regularity1 the latter of all the men he had ever known the greatest sensualist0 7,greville's ,memoirs1 vol4 iii4 p4 #cbd74 ,footnote #f3 ,for another side of life we may read his description of the ,english ,sunday3--8,on ,sunday one dares neither to play at cards nor to perform music4 ,the numerous spies who infest the streets of this capital listen to the sounds which come from the parlours of the houses1 and if they suspect any gaming or singing they conceal themselves and slip in at the first opportunity to seize those bad ,christians who dare to profane the ,lord's ,day by amusements which everywhere else are counted innocent4 ,in revenge the ,english may go with impunity to sanctify the holy day in the taverns and brothels which are so plentiful in this city40 ,one may compare with this ,mme4 de ,stal's almost ,dantesque description--so at least it remains in the memory--of the gloom of the ,scotch ,sabbath in the days of ,burns4 ,this statement of the matter remained substantially accurate until almost yesterday4 ,so long it remained for the ,english spirit to re-conquer ,sunday6 ,it must be remembered that ,puritanism1 while always a part of the ,english spirit1 was not originally its predominant note2 it only became so as an inevitable reaction against the exotic ,renaissance movement4 ,mary ,stuart made ,knox1 ,charles ,i4 made ,cromwell1 and both monarchs were intimately associated with the last wave of the ,renaissance4 ,,zola4 ,,zola',s name--a barbarous1 explosive name1 like an anarchist's bomb--has been tossed about amid hoots and yells for a quarter of a century4 ,in every civilised country we have heard of the man who has dragged literature into the gutter1 who has gone down to pick up the filth of the streets1 and has put it into books for the filthy to read4 ,and in every civilised country his books have been read1 by the hundred thousand4 ,to-day1 his great life-work is completed4 ,at the same time1 the uproar that it aroused has1 to a large extent1 fallen silent4 ,not that there is any general agreement as to the rank of the author of the ,rougon-,macquart series2 but the storms that greeted it have worn themselves out1 and it is recognised that there are at least two sides to this as to any other question4 ,such a time is favourable to the calm discussion of ,zola's precise position4 ,the fundamental assertion of those who1 in their irreconcilable opposition to ,zola1 have rightly felt that abuse is not argument1 has always been that ,zola is no artist4 ,the matter has usually presented itself to them as a question of ,idealism versus ,realism4 ,idealism1 as used by the literary critic1 seems to mean a careful selection of the facts of life for artistic treatment1 certain facts being suited for treatment in the novel1 certain other facts being not so suited2 while the realist1 from the literary critic's point of view1 is one who flings all facts indiscriminately into his pages4 ,i think that is a fair statement of the matter1 for the literary critic does not define very clearly2 still less does he ask himself how far the idealism he advocates is merely traditional1 nor1 usually1 to what extent the manner of presentation should influence us4 ,he does not ask himself these questions1 nor need we ask him1 for in the case of ,zola 7or1 indeed1 of any other so-called 8realist07 there is no such distinction4 ,there is no absolute realism1 merely a variety of idealisms2 the only absolute realism would be a phonographic record1 illustrated photographically1 after the manner of the cinematograph4 ,zola is just as much an idealist as ,george ,sand4 ,it is true that he selects very largely from material things1 and that he selects very profusely4 ,but the selection remains1 and where there is deliberate selection there is art4 ,we need not trouble ourselves here--and ,i doubt whether we are ever called upon to trouble ourselves--about 8,realism0 and 8,idealism40 ,the questions are3 ,has the artist selected the right materials8 ,has he selected them with due restraint8 ,the first question is a large one1 and1 in ,zola's case at all events1 it cannot1 ,i think1 be answered on purely sthetic grounds2 the second may be answered without difficulty4 ,zola has himself answered it2 he admits that he has been carried away by his enthusiasm1 and perhaps1 also1 by his extraordinary memory for recently-acquired facts 7a memory like a sponge1 as he has put it1 quickly swollen and quickly emptied72 he has sown details across his page with too profuse a hand4 ,it is the same kind of error as ,whitman made1 impelled by the same kind of enthusiasm4 ,zola expends immense trouble to get his facts2 he has told how he ransacked the theologians to obtain body and colour for ,la ,faute de l',abb ,mouret1 perhaps the best of his earlier books4 ,but he certainly spent no more preliminary labour on it than ,flaubert spent on ,madame ,bovary1 very far less than ,flaubert spent on the study of ,carthage for ,salammb4 ,but the results are different2 the one artist gets his effects by profusion and multiplicity of touches1 the other by the deliberate self-restraint with which he selects and emphasises solely the salient and significant touches4 ,the latter method seems to strike more swiftly and deeply the ends of art4 ,three strokes with the brush of ,frans ,hals are worth a thousand of ,denner's4 ,rich and minute detail may impress us1 but it irritates and wearies in the end4 ,if a man takes his two children on to his knees1 it matters little whether he places ,lnore on his right knee and ,henri on his left1 or the other way about2 the man himself may fail to know or to realise1 and the more intense his feelings the less likely is he to know4 ,when we are living deeply1 the facts of our external life do not present themselves to us in elaborate detail2 a very few points are--as it has been termed--focal in consciousness1 while the rest are marginal in subconsciousness4 ,a few things stand out vividly at each moment of life2 the rest are dim4 ,the supreme artist is shown by the insight and boldness with which he seizes and illuminates these bright points at each stage1 leaving the marginal elements in due subordination4 ,dramatists so unlike as ,ford and ,ibsen1 novelists so unlike as ,flaubert and ,tolstoi1 yet alike impress us by the simple vividness of their artistic effects4 ,the methods adopted by ,zola render such effects extremely difficult of attainment4 ,perhaps the best proof of ,zola's remarkable art is the skill with which he has neutralised the evil results of his ponderous method4 ,in his most characteristic novels1 as ,l',assommoir1 ,nana1 ,germinal1 his efforts to attain salient perspective in the mass of trivial or technical things--to build a single elaborate effect out of manifold details--are often admirably conducted4 ,take1 for instance1 the ,voreux1 the coal-pit which may almost be said to be the hero of ,germinal rather than any of the persons in the book4 ,the details are not interesting1 but they are carefully elaborated1 and the ,voreux is finally symbolised as a stupendous idol1 sated with human blood1 crouching in its mysterious sanctuary4 ,whenever ,zola wishes to bring the ,voreux before us1 this formula is repeated4 ,and it is the same1 in a slighter degree1 with the other material personalities of the book4 ,sometimes1 in the case of a crowd1 this formula is simply a cry4 ,it is so with the ,parisian mob who yell 8,a ,berlin60 in the highly-wrought conclusion to ,nana2 it is so with the crowd of strikers in ,germinal who shout for bread4 ,it is more than the tricky repetition of a word or a gesture1 overdone by ,dickens and others2 it is the artful manipulation of a carefully-elaborated1 significant phrase4 ,zola seems to have been the first who has1 deliberately and systematically1 introduced this sort of leit-motiv into literature1 as a method of summarising a complex mass of details1 and bringing the total impression of them before the reader4 ,in this way he contrives to minimise the defects of his method1 and to render his complex detail focal4 ,he sometimes attains poignantly simple effects by the mere repetition of a leit-motiv at the right moment4 ,and he is able at times1 also1 to throw aside his detailed method altogether1 and to reach effects of tragic intensity4 ,the mutilation of ,maigrat's corpse is a scene which can scarcely have been described in a novel before4 ,given the subject1 ,zola's treatment of it has the strength1 brevity1 and certainty of touch which only belong to great masters of art4 ,that ,zola is a great master of his art1 ,l',assommoir and ,germinal--which1 so far as ,i have read ,zola1 seem his two finest works--are enough to prove4 ,such works are related to the ordinary novel much as ,wagner's music-dramas are related to the ordinary ,italian opera4 ,wagner reaches a loftier height of art than ,zola2 he had a more complete grasp of all the elements he took in hand to unite4 ,zola has not seen with sufficient clearness the point of view of science1 and the limits of its capacity for harmonising with fiction2 nor has he with perfect sureness of vision always realised the ends of art4 ,he has left far too much of the scaffolding standing amid his huge literary structures2 there is too much mere brute fact which has not been wrought into art4 ,but1 if ,zola is not among the world's greatest artists1 ,i do not think we can finally deny that he is a great artist4 ,to look at ,zola from the purely artistic standpoint1 however1 is scarcely to see him at all4 ,his significance for the world generally1 and even for literature1 lies less in a certain method of using his material--as it may be said to lie1 for example1 in the case of the ,goncourts--than in the material itself1 and the impulses and ideas that prompted his selection of that material4 ,these growing piles of large books are the volcanic ejecta of an original and exuberant temperament4 ,to understand them we must investigate this temperament4 ,a considerable and confused amount of racial energy was stored up in ,zola4 ,at once ,french1 ,italian1 and ,greek--with a mother from the central ,beauce country of ,france1 more fruitful in corn than in intellect1 and a father of mixed ,italian and ,greek race1 a mechanical genius in his way1 with enthusiastic energies and large schemes--he presents a curious combination of potential forces1 perhaps not altogether a very promising combination4 ,one notes that the mechanical engineer in the father seems to have persisted in the son1 not necessarily by heredity1 but perhaps by early familiarity and association4 ,young ,zola was a delicate child and by no means a brilliant schoolboy1 though he once won a prize for memory2 such ability as he showed was in the direction of science2 he had no literary aptitudes4 ,he seems to have adopted literature chiefly because pen and ink come handiest to the eager energies of a poor clerk4 ,it is scarcely fanciful to detect the mechanical aptitudes still4 ,just as all ,huxley's natural instincts were towards mechanics1 and in physiology he always sought for the 8go0 of the organism1 so ,zola1 however imperfect his scientific equipment may be1 has always sought for the 8go0 of the social organism4 ,the history of the ,rougon-,macquart family is a study in social mathematics3 given certain family strains1 what is the dynamic hereditary outcome of their contact8 ,to the making of ,zola there went1 therefore1 this curious racial blend1 as a soil ready to be fertilised by any new seed1 and a certain almost instinctive tendency to look at things from the mechanical and material point of view4 ,to these1 in very early life1 a third factor was added of the first importance4 ,during long years after his father's death1 ,zola1 as a child and youth1 suffered from poverty1 poverty almost amounting to actual starvation1 the terrible poverty of respectability4 ,the whole temper of his work and his outlook on the world are clearly conditioned by this prolonged starvation of adolescence4 ,the timid and reserved youth--for such1 it is said1 has been ,zola's character both in youth and manhood--was shut up with his fresh energies in a garret while the panorama of the ,paris world was unfolded below him4 ,forced both by circumstances and by temperament to practise the strictest chastity and sobriety1 there was but one indulgence left open to him1 an orgy of vision4 ,of this1 as we read his books1 we cannot doubt that he fully availed himself1 for each volume of the ,rougon-,macquart series is an orgy of material vision4#g ,zola remained chaste1 and1 it is said1 he is still sober--though we are told that his melancholy morose face lights up like a gourmet's at the hour of his abstemious dinner--but this early eagerness to absorb the sights as well as the sounds1 and one may add the smells1 of the external world1 has at length become moulded into a routine method4 ,to take some corner of life1 and to catalogue every detail of it1 to place a living person there1 and to describe every sight and smell and sound around him1 although he himself may be quite unconscious of them--that1 in the simplest form1 is the recipe for making a roman exprimental4 ,the method1 ,i wish to insist1 was rooted in the author's experience of the world4 ,life only came to him as the sights1 sounds1 smells1 that reached his garret window4 ,his soul seems to have been starved at the centre1 and to have encamped at the sensory periphery4 ,he never tasted deep of life1 he stored up none of those wells of purely personal emotion from which great artists have hoisted up the precious fluid which makes the bright living blood of their creations4 ,how different he is in this respect from the other great novelist of our day1 who has also been a volcanic force of world-wide significance6 ,tolstoi comes before us as a man who has himself lived deeply1 a man who has had an intense thirst for life1 and who has satisfied that thirst4 ,he has craved to know life1 to know women1 the joy of wine1 the fury of battle1 the taste of the ploughman's sweat in the field4 ,he has known all these things1 not as material to make books1 but as the slaking of instinctive personal passions4 ,and in knowing them he has stored up a wealth of experiences from which he drew as he came to make books1 and which bear about them that peculiar haunting fragrance only yielded by the things which have been lived through1 personally1 in the far past4 ,zola's method has been quite otherwise3 when he wished to describe a great house he sat outside the palatial residence of ,m4 ,menier1 the chocolate manufacturer1 and imagined for himself the luxurious fittings inside1 discovering in after years that his description had come far short of the reality2 before writing ,nana1 he obtained an introduction to a courtesan1 with whom he was privileged to lunch2 his laborious preparation for the wonderful account of the war of #ahgj1 in ,la ,dbcle1 was purely one of books1 documents1 and second-hand experiences2 when he wished to write of labour he went to the mines and to the fields1 but never appears to have done a day's manual work4 ,zola's literary methods are those of the parvenu who has tried to thrust himself in from outside1 who has never been seated at the table of life1 who has never really lived4 ,that is their weakness4 ,it is also their virtue4 ,there is no sense of satiety in ,zola's work as there is in ,tolstoi's4 ,one can understand how it is that1 although their methods are so unlike1 ,tolstoi himself regards ,zola as the one ,french novelist of the day who is really alive4 ,the starved lad1 whose eyes were concentrated with longing on the visible world1 has reaped a certain reward from his intellectual chastity2 he has preserved his clearness of vision for material things1 an eager1 insatiable1 impartial vision4 ,he is a zealot in his devotion to life1 to the smallest details of life4 ,he has fought like the doughtiest knight of old-world romance for his lady's honour1 and has suffered more contumely than they all4 8,on barde de fer nos urinoirs60 he shouts in a fury of indignation in one of his essays2 it is a curious instance of the fanatic's austere determination that no barrier shall be set up to shut out the sights and smells of the external world4 ,the virgin freshness of his thirst for life gives its swelling1 youthful vigour to his work1 its irrepressible energy4 ,it has1 indeed1 happened with this unsatisfied energy as it will happen with such energies2 it has retained its robustness at the sacrifice of the sweetness it might otherwise have gained4 ,there is a certain bitterness in ,zola's fury of vision1 as there is also in his gospel of 8,work6 work6 work60 ,one is conscious of a savage assault on a citadel which1 the assailant now well knows1 can never be scaled4 ,life cannot be reached by the senses alone2 there is always something that cannot be caught by the utmost tension of eyes and ears and nose2 a well-balanced soul is built up1 not alone on sensory memories1 but also on the harmonious satisfaction of the motor and emotional energies4 ,that cardinal fact must be faced even when we are attempting to define the fruitful and positive element in ,zola's activity4 ,the chief service which ,zola has rendered to his fellow-artists and successors1 the reason of the immense stimulus he supplies1 seems to lie in the proofs he has brought of the latent artistic uses of the rough1 neglected details of life4 ,the ,rougon-,macquart series has been to his weaker brethren like that great sheet knit at the four corners1 let down from ,heaven full of four-footed beasts and creeping things and fowls of the air1 and bearing in it the demonstration that to the artist as to the moralist nothing can be called common or unclean4 ,it has henceforth become possible for other novelists to find inspiration where before they could never have turned1 to touch life with a vigour and audacity of phrase which1 without ,zola's example1 they would have trembled to use1 while they still remain free to bring to their work the simplicity1 precision1 and inner experience which he has never possessed4 ,zola has enlarged the field of the novel4 ,he has brought the modern material world into fiction in a more definite and thorough manner than it has ever been brought before1 just as ,richardson brought the modern emotional world into fiction2 such an achievement necessarily marks an epoch4 ,in spite of all his blunders1 ,zola has given the novel new power and directness1 a vigour of fibre which was hard indeed to attain1 but which1 once attained1 we may chasten as we will4 ,and in doing this he has put out of court1 perhaps for ever1 those unwholesome devotees of the novelist's art who work out of their vacuity1 having neither inner nor outer world to tell of4 ,zola's delight in exuberant detail1 it is true1 is open to severe criticism4 ,when1 however1 we look at his work1 not as great art but as an important moment in the evolution of the novel1 this exuberance is amply justified4 ,such furious energy in hammering home this demonstration of the artistic utility of the whole visible modern world may detract from the demonstrator's reputation for skill2 it has certainly added to the force of the demonstration4 ,zola's luxuriance of detail--the heritage of that romantic movement of which he was the child--has extended impartially to every aspect of life he has investigated1 to the working of a mine1 to the vegetation of the ,paradou1 to the ritual of the ,catholic ,church4 ,but it is not on the details of inanimate life1 or the elaborate description of the industrial and religious functions of men1 that the rage of ,zola's adversaries has chiefly been spent4 ,it is rather on his use of the language of the common people and on his descriptions of the sexual and digestive functions of humanity4 ,zola has used slang--the argot of the populace--copiously1 chiefly indeed in ,l',assommoir1 which is professedly a study of low life1 but to a less extent in his other books4 ,a considerable part of the power of ,l',assommoir1 in many respects ,zola's most perfect work1 lies in the skill with which he uses the language of the people he is dealing with2 the reader is bathed throughout in an atmosphere of picturesque1 vigorous1 often coarse argot4 ,there is1 no doubt1 a lack of critical sobriety in the profusion and reiteration of vulgarisms1 of coarse oaths1 of the varied common synonyms for common things4 ,but they achieve the end that ,zola sought1 and so justify themselves4 ,they are of even greater interest as a protest against the exaggerated purism which has ruled the ,french language for nearly three centuries1 and while rendering it a more delicate and precise instrument for scientific purposes1 has caused it to become rather bloodless and colourless for the artist's purposes1 as compared with the speech used by ,rabelais1 ,montaigne1 and even ,molire1 the great classics who have chiefly influenced ,zola4 ,the romantic movement of the present century1 it is true1 added colour to the language1 but scarcely blood2 it was an exotic1 feverish colour which has not permanently enriched ,french speech4 ,a language rendered anmic by over-clarification cannot be fed by exotic luxuries but by an increase in the vigorous staples of speech1 and ,zola was on the right track when he went to the people's common speech1 which is often classic in the true sense and always robust4 ,doubtless he has been indiscriminate and even inaccurate in his use of argot1 sometimes giving undue place to what is of merely temporary growth4 ,but the main thing was to give literary place and prestige to words and phrases which had fallen so low in general esteem1 in spite of their admirable expressiveness1 that only a writer of the first rank and of unequalled audacity could venture to lift them from the mire4 ,this ,zola has done2 and those who follow him may easily exercise the judgment and discretion in which he has been lacking4 ,zola's treatment of the sexual and the digestive functions1 as ,i pointed out1 has chiefly aroused his critics4 ,if you think of it1 these two functions are precisely the central functions of life1 the two poles of hunger and love around which the world revolves4 ,it is natural that it should be precisely these fundamental aspects of life which in the superficial contact of ordinary social intercourse we are for ever trying more and more to refine away and ignore4 ,they are subjected to an ever-encroaching process of attenuation and circumlocution1 and as a social tendency this influence is possibly harmless or even beneficial4 ,but it is constantly extending to literature also1 and here it is disastrous4 ,it is true that a few great authors--classics of the first rank--have gone to extremes in their resistance to this tendency4 ,these extremes are of two kinds3 the first issuing in a sort of coprolalia1 or inclination to dwell on excrement1 which we find to a slight extent in ,rabelais and to a marked extent in the half-mad ,swift2 in its fully-developed shape this coprolalia is an uncontrollable instinct found in some forms of insanity4 ,the other extreme is that of pruriency1 or the perpetual itch to circle round sexual matters1 accompanied by a timidity which makes it impossible to come right up to them2 this sort of impotent fumbling in women's placket-holes finds its supreme literary exponent in ,sterne4 ,like coprolalia1 when uncontrolled1 prurience is a well-recognised characteristic of the insane1 leading them to find a vague eroticism everywhere4 ,but both these extreme tendencies have not been found incompatible with the highest literary art4 ,moreover1 their most pronounced exponents have been clerics1 the conventional representatives of the ,almighty4 ,however far ,zola might go in these directions1 he would still be in what is universally recognised as very good company4 ,he has in these respects by no means come up with ,father ,rabelais and ,dean ,swift and the ,rev4 ,laurence ,sterne2 but there can be little doubt that1 along both lines1 he has missed the restraint of well-balanced art4 ,on the one hand he over-emphasises what is repulsive in the nutritive side of life1 and on the other hand1 with the timid obsession of chastity1 he over-emphasises the nakedness of flesh4 ,in so doing1 he has revealed a certain flabbiness in his art1 although he has by no means diminished his service in widening the horizon of literary speech and subject4 ,bearing in mind that many crowned kings of literature have approached these subjects quite as closely as ,zola1 and far less seriously1 it does not seem necessary to enter any severer judgment here4 ,to enlarge the sphere of language is an unthankful task1 but in the long run literature owes an immense debt to the writers who courageously add to the stock of strong and simple words4 ,our own literature for two centuries has been hampered by the social tendency of life to slur expression1 and to paraphrase or suppress all forceful and poignant words4 ,if we go back to ,chaucer1 or even to ,shakespeare1 we realise what power of expression we have lost4 ,it is enough1 indeed1 to turn to our ,english ,bible4 ,the literary power of the ,english ,bible is largely due to the unconscious instinct for style which happened to be in the air when it was chiefly moulded1 to the simple1 direct1 unashamed vigour of its speech4 ,certainly1 if the discovery of the ,bible had been left for us to make1 any ,english translation would have to be issued at a high price by some esoteric society1 for fear lest it should fall into the hands of the ,british matron4 ,it is our ,british love of compromise1 we say1 that makes it possible for a spade to be called a spade on one day of the week1 but on no other2 our neighbours1 whose minds are more logically constituted1 call it le cant ,britannique4 ,but our mental compartments remain very water-tight1 and on the whole we are even worse off than the ,french who have no ,bible4 ,for instance1 we have almost lost the indispensable words 8belly0 and 8bowels10 both used so often and with such admirable effect in the ,psalms2 we talk of the 8stomach10 a word which is not only an incorrect equivalent1 but at best totally inapt for serious or poetic uses4 ,any one who is acquainted with our old literature1 or with the familiar speech of the common folk1 will recall similar instances of simple1 powerful expressions which are lost or vanishing from literary language1 leaving no available substitute behind4 ,in modern literary language1 indeed1 man scarcely exists save in his extremities4 ,for we take the pubes as a centre1 and we thence describe a circle with a radius of some eighteen inches--in ,america the radius is rather longer--and we forbid any reference to any organ within the circle1 save that maid-of-all-work the 8stomach02 in other words1 we make it impossible to say anything to the point concerning the central functions of life4 ,it is a question how far real literature can be produced under such conditions1 not merely because literature is thus shut out from close contact with the vital facts of life1 but because the writer who is willing to be so shut out1 who finds himself most at home within the social limits of speech1 will probably not be made of the heroic stuff that goes to the moulding of a great writer4 ,the social limits of speech are useful enough1 for we are all members of society1 and it is well that we should have some protection against the assaults of unbridled vulgarity4 ,but in literature we may choose to read what we will1 or to read nothing1 and the man who enters the world of literature timidly equipped with the topics and language of the drawing-room is not likely to go far4 ,i once saw it stated depreciatingly in a grave literary review that a certain novel by a woman writer dealt with topics that are not even discussed by men at their clubs4 ,i had never read it1 but it seemed to me then that there might be hope for that novel4 ,no doubt it is even possible in literature to fall below the club standard1 but unless you can rise above the club standard1 better stay at the club1 tell stories there1 or sweep the crossing outside4 ,all our great poets and novelists from ,chaucer to ,fielding wrote sincerely and heroically concerning the great facts of life4 ,that is why they are great1 robustly sane1 radiantly immortal4 ,it is a mistake to suppose that no heroism was involved in their case2 for though no doubt they had a freer general speech on their side they went beyond their time in daring to mould that speech to the ends of art1 in bringing literature closer to life4 ,it was so even with ,chaucer2 compare him with his contemporaries and successors2 observe how he seeks to soothe the susceptibilities of his readers and to deprecate the protests of the 8precious folk40 ,there is no great art at any epoch without heroism1 though one epoch may be more favourable than another to the exercise of such heroism in literature4 ,in our own age and country daring has passed out of the channels of art into those of commerce1 to find exercise1 foolish enough sometimes1 in the remotest corners of the earth4 ,it is because our literature is not heroic1 but has been confined within the stifling atmosphere of the drawing-room1 that ,english poets and novelists have ceased to be a power in the world and are almost unknown outside the parlours and nurseries of our own country4 ,it is because in ,france there have never ceased to be writers here and there who have dared to face life heroically and weld it into art that the literature of ,france is a power in the world wherever there are men intelligent enough to recognise its achievements4 ,when literature that is not only fine but also great appears in ,england we shall know it as such by its heroism1 if by no other mark4 ,language has its immense significance because it is the final incarnation of a man's most intimate ideals4 ,zola's style and method are monotonous--with a monotony which makes his books unreadable when we have once mastered his secret--and the burden they express is ever the same3 the energy of natural life4 ,whatever is robust1 whatever is wholesomely exuberant1 whatever1 wholesomely or not1 is possessed by the devouring fury of life--of such things ,zola can never have enough4 ,the admirable opening of ,la ,terre1 in which a young girl drives the cow1 wild for the male1 to the farm where the stockbull is kept1 then leading the appeased animal home again1 symbolises ,zola's whole view of the world4 ,all the forces of ,nature1 it seems to him1 are raging in the fury of generative desire or reposing in the fulness of swelling maturity4 ,the very earth itself1 in the impressive pages with which ,germinal closes1 is impregnated with men1 germinating beneath the soil1 one day to burst through the furrows and renew the old world's failing life4 ,in this conception of the natural energies of the world--as manifested in men and animals1 in machines1 in every form of matter--perpetually conceiving and generating1 ,zola reaches his most impressive effects1 though these effects are woven together of elements that are separately of no very exquisite beauty1 or subtle insight1 or radical novelty4 ,in considering ,zola1 we are indeed constantly brought back to the fact that most of the things that he has tried to do have been better done by more accomplished artists4 ,the ,goncourts have extended the sphere of language1 even in the direction of slang1 and have faced many of the matters that ,zola has faced1 and with far more delicate1 though usually more shadowy1 art2 ,balzac has created as large and vivid a world of people1 though drawing more of it from his own imagination2 ,huysmans has greater skill in stamping the vision of strange or sordid things on the brain2 ,tolstoi gives a deeper realisation of life2 ,flaubert is as audaciously naturalistic1 and has1 as well1 that perfect self-control which should always accompany audacity4 ,and in ,flaubert1 too1 we find something of the same irony as in ,zola4 ,this irony1 however1 is a personal and characteristic feature of ,zola's work4 ,it is irony alone which gives it distinction and poignant incisiveness4 ,irony may be called the soul of ,zola's work1 the embodiment of his moral attitude towards life4 ,it has its source1 doubtless1 like so much else that is characteristic1 in his early days of poverty and aloofness from the experiences of life4 ,there is a fierce impartiality--the impartiality of one who is outside and shut off--in this manner of presenting the brutalities and egoisms and pettinesses of men4 ,the fury of his irony is here equalled by his self-restraint4 ,he concentrates it into a word1 a smile1 a gesture4 ,zola believes1 undoubtedly1 in a reformed1 even perhaps a revolutionised1 future of society1 but he has no illusions4 ,he sets down things as he sees them4 ,he has no tendernesses for the working-classes1 no pictures of rough diamonds4 ,we may see this very clearly in ,germinal4 ,here every side of the problem of modern capitalism is presented3 the gentle-natured shareholding class unable to realise a state of society in which people should not live on dividends and give charity2 the official class with their correct authoritative views1 very sure that they will always be needed to control labour and maintain social order2 and the workers1 some brutalised1 some suffering like dumb beasts1 some cringing to the bosses1 some rebelling madly1 a few striving blindly for justice4 ,there is no loophole in ,zola's impartiality2 the gradual development of the seeming hero of ,germinal1 ,etienne ,lantier1 the agitator1 honest in his revolt against oppression1 but with an unconscious bourgeois ideal at his heart1 seems unerringly right4 ,all are the victims of an evil social system1 as ,zola sees the world1 the enslaved workers as much as the overfed masters2 the only logical outcome is a clean sweep--the burning up of the chaff and straw1 the fresh furrowing of the earth1 the new spring of a sweet and vigorous race4 ,that is the logical outcome of ,zola's attitude1 the attitude of one who regards our present society as a thoroughly vicious circle4 ,his pity for men and women is boundless2 his disdain is equally boundless4 ,it is only towards animals that his tenderness is untouched by contempt2 some of his most memorable passages are concerned with the sufferings of animals4 ,the ,new ,jerusalem may be fitted up1 but the ,montsou miners will never reach it2 they will fight for the first small1 stuffy1 middle-class villa they meet on the way4 ,and ,zola pours out the stream of his pitiful1 pitiless irony on the weak1 helpless1 erring children of men4 ,it is this moral energy1 combined with his volcanic exuberance1 which lifts him to a position of influence above the greater artists with whom we may compare him4 ,it is by no means probable that the world will continue to read ,zola much longer4 ,his work is already done2 but when the nineteenth century is well past it may be that he will still have his interest4 ,there will be plenty of material1 especially in the newspapers1 for the future historian to reconstruct the social life of the latter half of the nineteenth century4 ,but the material is so vast that these historians will possibly be even more biassed and one-sided than our own4 ,for a vivid1 impartial picture--on the whole a faithful picture--of certain of the most characteristic aspects of this period1 seen indeed from the outside1 but drawn by a contemporary in all its intimate and even repulsive details1 the reader of a future age can best go to ,zola4 ,what would we not give for a thirteenth century ,zola6 ,we should read with painful1 absorbed interest a narrative of the ,black ,death as exact as that of nineteenth century alcoholism in ,l',assommoir4 ,the story of how the serf lived1 as fully told as in ,la ,terre1 would be of incomparable value4 ,the early merchant and usurer would be a less dim figure if ,l',argent had been written about him4 ,the abbeys and churches of those days have in part come down to us1 but no ,germinal remains to tell of the lives and thoughts of the men who hewed those stones1 and piled them1 and carved them4 ,how precious such record would have been we may realise when we recall the incomparable charm of ,chaucer's prologue to ,the ,canterbury ,tales4 ,but our children's children1 with the same passions alive at their hearts under incalculably different circumstances1 will in the pages of the ,rougon-,macquart series find themselves back again among all the strange remote details of a vanished world4 ,what a fantastic and terrible page of old-world romance6 ,,footnotes3 ,footnote #g3 8,mes souvenirs10 he told a psychological interviewer1 8ont une puissance1 un relief extraordinaire2 ma mmoire est norme1 prodigieuse1 elle me gne2 quand j'voque les objets que j'ai vus1 je les revois tels qu'ils sont rellement avec leurs lignes1 leurs formes1 leurs couleurs1 leurs odeurs1 leurs sons2 c'est une matrialisation outrance2 le soleil qui les claire m'blouit presque2 l'odeur me suffoque1 les dtails s'accrochent moi et m'empchent de voir l'ensemble4 ,aussi pour le ressaisir me faut-il attendre un certain temps4 ,cette possibilit d'vocation ne dure pas trs longtemps2 le relief de l'image est d'une exactitude1 d'une intensit inoues1 puis l'image s'efface1 disparat1 cela s'en va40 ,this description suggests myopia1 and it is a fact that ,zola has been short-sighted from youth2 he first realised it at sixteen4 ,his other senses1 especially smell1 are very keen--largely1 however1 as an outcome of attention or practice4 ,thus while his tactile sensibility and sensibility to pain are acute1 his olfactory keenness is rather qualitative than quantitative2 that is to say that it mainly consists in a marked memory for odours1 a tendency to be emotionally impressed by them1 and an ability to distinguish them in which he resembles professional perfumers4 ,all these and many other facts have been very precisely ascertained by means of the full psychological and anthropological study of ,m4 ,zola which has been carried out by experts under the superintendence of ,dr4 ,toulouse4 ,,huysmans4 ,,in trying to represent the man who wrote the extraordinary books grouped around ,a ,rebours and ,en ,route1 ,i find myself carried back to the decline of the ,latin world4 ,i recall those restless ,africans who were drawn into the vortex of decadent ,rome1 who absorbed its corruptions with all the barbaric fervour of their race1 and then with a more natural impetus of that youthful fervour threw themselves into the young current of ,christianity1 yet retaining in their flesh the brand of an exotic culture4 ,tertullian1 ,augustine1 and the rest gained much of their power1 as well as their charm1 because they incarnated a fantastic mingling of youth and age1 of decayed ,latinity1 of tumultuously youthful ,christianity4 ,huysmans1 too1 incarnates the old and the new1 but with a curious1 a very vital difference4 ,to-day the rles are reversed2 it is another culture that is now young1 with its aspirations after human perfection and social solidarity1 while ,christianity has exchanged the robust beauty of youth for the subtler beauty of age4 8,the most perfect analogy to our time which ,i can find10 wrote ,renan to his sister amid the tumults of ,paris in #ahdh1 a few weeks after ,huysmans had been born in the same city1 8is the moment when ,christianity and paganism stood face to face40 ,huysmans had wandered from ancestral haunts of medival peace into the forefront of the struggles of our day1 bringing the clear1 refined perceptions of old culture to the intensest vision of the modern world yet attained1 but never at rest1 never once grasping except on the purely sthetic side the significance of the new age1 always haunted by the memory of the past and perpetually feeling his way back to what seems to him the home of his soul4--,the fervent seeker of those early days1 indeed1 but rebours6 ,this is scarcely a mere impression2 one might be tempted to say that it is strictly the formula of this complex and interesting personality4 ,coming on the maternal side from an ordinary ,parisian bourgeois stock1 though there chanced to be a sculptor even along this line1 on the paternal side he belongs to an alien aristocracy of art4 ,from father to son his ancestors were painters1 of whom at least one1 ,cornelius ,huysmans1 still figures honourably in our public galleries1 while the last of them left ,breda to take up his domicile in ,paris4 ,here his son1 ,joris ,karl1 has been the first of the race to use the pen instead of the brush1 yet retaining precisely those characters of 8veracity of imitation1 jewel-like richness of colour1 perfection of finish1 emphasis of character10 which their historian finds in the painters of his land from the fourteenth century onwards4 ,where the ,meuse approaches the ,rhine valley we find the home of the men who1 almost alone in the north1 created painting and the arts that are grouped around painting1 and evolved religious music4 ,on the side of art the ,church had found its chief builders in the men of these valleys1 and even on the spiritual side also1 for here is the northern home of mysticism4 ,their latest child has fixed his attention on the feverish activities of ,paris with the concentrated gaze of a stranger in a strange land1 held by a fascination which is more than half repulsion1 always missing something1 he scarcely knows what4 ,he has ever been seeking the satisfaction he had missed1 sometimes in the sthetic vision of common things1 sometimes in the refined ,thebaid of his own visions1 at length more joyfully in the survivals of medival mysticism4 ,yet as those early ,africans still retained their acquired ,roman instincts1 and that fantastic style which could not be shaken off1 so ,huysmans will surely retain to the last the tincture of ,parisian modernity4 ,yet we can by no means altogether account for ,huysmans by race and environment4 ,every man of genius is a stranger and a pilgrim on the earth1 unlike other men1 seeing everything as it were at a different angle1 mirroring the world in his mind as in those concave or convex mirrors which elongate or abbreviate absurdly all who approach them4 ,no one ever had a keener sense of the distressing absurdity of human affairs than ,m4 ,huysmans4 ,the ,trocadero is not a beautiful building1 but to no one else probably has it appeared as an old hag lying on her back and elevating her spindle shanks towards the sky4 ,such images of men's works and ways abound in ,huysmans' books1 and they express his unaffected vision of life1 his disgust for men and things1 a shuddering disgust1 yet patient1 half-amused4 ,i can well recall an evening spent some years ago in ,m4 ,huysmans' company4 ,his face1 with the sensitive1 luminous eyes1 reminded one of ,baudelaire's portraits1 the face of a resigned and benevolent ,mephistopheles who has discovered the absurdity of the ,divine order but has no wish to make any improper use of his discovery4 ,he talked in low and even tones1 never eagerly1 without any emphasis or gesture1 not addressing any special person2 human imbecility was the burden of nearly all that he said1 while a faint twinkle of amused wonderment lit up his eyes4 ,and throughout all his books until almost the last 8l'ternelle btise de l'humanit0 is the ever-recurring refrain4 ,always leading a retired life1 and specially abhorring the society and conversation of the average literary man1 ,m4 ,huysmans has for many years been a government servant--a model official1 it is said--at the ,ministry of ,foreign ,affairs4 ,here1 like our own officials at ,whitehall1 he serves his country in dignified leisure--on the only occasion on which ,i have seen him in his large and pleasant bureau1 he was gazing affectionately at ,chret's latest affiche1 which a lady of his acquaintance had just brought to show him--and such duties of routine1 with the close contact with practical affairs they involve1 must always be beneficial in preserving the sane equipoise of an imaginative temperament4 ,in this matter ,huysmans has been more fortunate than his intimate friend ,villiers de l',isle-,adam1 who had wandered so far into the world of dreams that he lost touch with the external world and ceased to distinguish them clearly4 ,one is at first a little surprised to hear of the patient tact and diplomacy which the author of ,a ,rebours spent round the death-bed of the author of ,contes ,cruels to obtain the dying dreamer's consent to a ceremony of marriage which would legitimate his child4 ,but ,huysmans' sensitive nervous system and extravagant imagination have ever been under the control of a sane and forceful intellect2 his very idealism has been nourished by the contemplation of a world which he has seen too vividly ever to ignore4 ,we may read that in the reflective deliberation of his grave and courteous bearing1 somewhat recalling1 as more than one observer has noted1 his own favourite animal1 the cat1 whose outward repose of ,buddhistic contemplation envelops a highly-strung nervous system1 while its capacity to enjoy the refinements of human civilisation comports a large measure of spiritual freedom and ferocity4 ,like many another man of letters1 ,huysmans suffers from neuralgia and dyspepsia2 but no novelist has described so persistently and so poignantly the pangs of toothache or the miseries of maux d'estomac1 a curious proof of the peculiarly personal character of ,huysmans' work throughout4 ,his sole pre-occupation has been with his own impressions4 ,he possessed no native genius for the novel4 ,but with a very sound instinct he set himself1 almost at the outset of his career1 to describe intimately and faithfully the crudest things of life1 the things most remote from his own esoteric tastes but at that time counted peculiarly 8real40 ,there could be no better discipline for an idealist4 ,step by step he has left the region of vulgar actualities to attain his proper sphere1 but the marvellous and slowly won power of expressing the spiritually impalpable in concrete imagery is the fruit of that laborious apprenticeship4 ,he was influenced in his novels at first by ,goncourt1 afterwards a little by ,zola1 as he sought to reproduce his own vivid and personal vision of the world4 ,this vision is like that of a man with an intense exaltation of the senses1 especially the senses of sight and smell4 ,essentially ,huysmans is less a novelist than a poet1 with an instinct to use not verse but prose as his medium4 ,thus he early fell under the influence of ,baudelaire's prose-poems4 ,his small and slight first volume1 ,le ,drageoir ,epices1 bears witness to this influence1 while yet revealing a personality clearly distinct from ,baudelaire's4 ,this personality is already wholly revealed in the quaint audacity of the little prose-poem entitled 8,l',extase40 ,here1 at the very outset of ,huysmans' career1 we catch an unconscious echo of medival asceticism1 the voice1 it might be1 of ,odo of ,cluny1 who nearly a thousand years before had shrunk with horror from embracing a 8sack of dung20 8quomodo ipsum stercoris saccum amplecti desideramus60 8,l',extase0 describes how the lover lies in the wood clasping the hand of the beloved and bathed in a rapture of blissful emotion2 8suddenly she rose1 disengaged her hand1 disappeared in the bushes1 and ,i heard as it were the rustling of rain on the leaves20 at once the delicious dream fled and the lover awakes to the reality of commonplace human things4 ,that is a parable of the high-strung idealism1 having only contempt for whatever breaks in on its ideal1 which has ever been the mark of ,huysmans4 ,his sensitive ear is alive to the gentlest ripple of nature1 and it jars on him2 it becomes the deafening ,niagara of 8the incessant deluge of human foolishness20 all his art is the research for a ,heaven where the voice of ,nature shall no more be heard4 ,baudelaire was also such a hypersthetic idealist1 but the human tenderness which vibrates beneath the surface of ,baudelaire's work has been the last quality to make itself more than casually felt in ,huysmans4 ,it is the defect which vitiated his early work in the novel1 when he was still oscillating between the prose-poem and the novel1 clearly conscious that while the first suited him best only in the second could mastery be won4 ,his early novels are sometimes portentously dull1 with a lack of interest1 or even attempt to interest1 which itself almost makes them interesting1 as frank ugliness is4 ,they are realistic with a veracious and courageously abject realism1 never1 like ,zola's1 carefully calculated for its pictorial effectiveness1 but dealing simply with the trivialest and sordidest human miseries4 ,his first novel ,marthe--which inaugurated the long series of novels devoted to state-regulated prostitution in those slaughter-houses of love1 as ,huysmans later described them1 where ,desire is slain at a single stroke1--sufficiently repulsive on the whole1 is not without flashes of insight which reveal the future artist1 and to some readers indeed make it more interesting than ,la ,fille ,elisa1 which the ,goncourts published shortly afterwards4 ,unlike the crude and awkward ,marthe--though that book reveals the influence of the ,goncourts--,la ,fille ,elisa shows the hand of an accomplished artist1 but it is also the work of a philanthropist writing with an avowed object1 and of a fine gentleman ostentatiously anxious not to touch pitch with more than a finger-tip4 ,the ,preface to ,marthe contains a declaration which remains true for the whole of ,huysmans' work3 8,i set down what ,i see1 what ,i feel1 what ,i have lived1 writing it as well as ,i am able1 et voil tout60 ,but it has ever been a dangerous task to set down what one sees and feels and has lived2 for no obvious reason1 except the subject1 ,marthe was immediately suppressed by the police4 ,this first novel remains the least personal of ,huysmans' books2 in his next novel1 ,les ,surs ,vatard--a study of ,parisian workgirls and their lovers--a more characteristic vision of the world begins to be revealed1 and from that time forward there is a continuous though irregular development both in intellectual grip and artistic mastery4 8,sac au ,dos10 which appeared in the ,soires de ,mdan1 represents a notable stage in this development1 for here1 as he has since acknowledged1 ,huysmans' hero is himself4 ,it is the story of a young student who serves during the great war in the ,garde ,mobile of the ,seine1 and is invalided with dysentery before reaching the front4 ,there is no story1 no striking impression to record--nothing to compare with ,guy de ,maupassant's incomparably more brilliant 8,boule-de-,suif10 also dealing with the fringe of war1 which appears in the same volume--no opportunity for literary display1 nothing but a record of individual feelings with which the writer seems satisfied because they are interesting to himself4 ,it is1 in fact1 the germ of that method which ,huysmans has since carried to so brilliant a climax in ,en ,route4 ,all the glamour of war and the enthusiasm of patriotism are here--long before ,zola wrote his ,dbcle--reduced to their simplest terms in the miseries of the individual soldier whose chief aspiration it becomes at last to return to a home where the necessities of nature may be satisfied in comfort and peace4 ,at that time ,huysmans' lack of patriotic enthusiasm seemed almost scandalous2 but when we bear in mind his racial affinities it is natural that he should1 as he once remarked to an interviewer1 8prefer a ,leipzig man to a ,marseilles man10 8the big1 phlegmatic1 taciturn ,germans0 to the gesticulating and rhetorical people of the ,french south4 ,in ,l-,bas1 at a later date1 through the mouth of one of his characters1 ,huysmans goes so far as to regret the intervention of ,joan of ,arc in ,french history1 for had it not been for ,joan ,france and ,england would have been restored to their racial and prehistoric unity1 consolidated into one great kingdom under ,norman ,plantagenets1 instead of being given up to the southerners of ,latin race who surrounded ,charles ,,vii4 ,the best of ,huysmans' early novels is undoubtedly ,en ,mnage4 ,it is the intimate history of a young literary man who1 having married a wife whom he shortly afterwards finds unfaithful1 leaves her1 returns to his bachelor life1 and in the end becomes reconciled to her4 ,this picture of a studious man who goes away with his books to fight over again the petty battles of bachelorhood with the bonne and the concierge and his own cravings for womanly love and companionship1 reveals clearly for the first time ,huysmans' power of analysing states of mind that are at once simple and subtle4 ,perhaps no writer surprises us more by his revealing insight into the commonplace experiences which all a novelist's traditions lead him to idealise or ignore4 ,as a whole1 however1 ,en ,mnage is scarcely yet a master's work1 a little laboured1 with labour which cannot yet achieve splendour of effect4 ,nor can a much slighter story1 ,a ,vau l',eau1 which appeared a little later1 be said to mark a further stage in development1 though it is a characteristic study1 this sordid history of ,folantin1 the poor1 lame1 discontented1 middle-aged clerk4 ,cheated and bullied on every side1 falling a prey to the vulgar woman of the street who boisterously takes possession of him in the climax of the story1 all the time feeling poignantly the whole absurdity of the situation1 there is yet one spot where hope seems possible4 ,he has no religious faith2 8and yet10 he reflects1 8yet mysticism alone could heal the wound that tortures me40 ,thus ,folantin1 though like ,andr in ,en ,mnage he resigns himself to the inevitable stupidity of life1 yet stretches out his hands towards the ,durtal of ,huysmans' latest work4 ,in all these novels we feel that ,huysmans has not attained to full self-expression4 ,intellectual mastery1 indeed1 he is attaining1 but scarcely yet the expression of his own personal ideals4 ,the poet in ,huysmans1 the painter enamoured of beauty and seeking it in unfamiliar places1 has little scope in these detailed pictures of sordid or commonplace life4 ,at this early period it is still in prose-poems1 especially in ,croquis ,parisiens1 that this craving finds satisfaction4 ,des ,esseintes1 the hero of ,a ,rebours1 who on so many matters is ,huysmans' mouthpiece1 of all forms of literature preferred the prose-poem when1 in the hands of an alchemist of genius1 it reveals a novel concentrated into a few pages or a few lines1 the concrete juice1 the essential oil of art4 ,it was 8a communion of thought between a magical writer and an ideal reader1 a spiritual collaboration among a dozen superior persons scattered throughout the world1 a delectation offered to the finest wits1 and to them alone accessible40 ,huysmans took up this form where ,baudelaire and ,mallarm had left it1 and sought to carry it yet further4 ,in that he was scarcely successful4 ,the excess of tension in the tortured language with which he elaborates his effects too often holds him back from the goal of perfection4 ,we must yet value in ,croquis ,parisiens its highly wrought and individual effects of rhythm and colour and form4 ,in ,france1 at all events1 ,huysmans is held to inaugurate the poetic treatment of modern things--a characteristic already traceable in ,les ,surs ,vatard--and this book deals with the sthetic aspects of latter-day ,paris1 with the things that are 8ugly and superb1 outrageous and yet exquisite10 as a type of which he selects the ,folies-,bergre1 at that time the most characteristic of ,parisian music-halls1 and he was thus the first to discuss the sthetic value of the variety stage which has been made cheaper since4 ,for the most part1 however1 these ,croquis are of the simplest and most commonplace things--the forlorn ,bivre district1 the poor man's caf1 the roast-chestnut seller--extracting the beauty or pathos or strangeness of all these things4 8,thy garment is the palette of setting suns1 the rust of old copper1 the brown gilt of ,cordovan leather1 the sandal and saffron tints of the autumn foliage4444 ,when ,i contemplate thy coat of mail ,i think of ,rembrandt's pictures1 ,i see again his superb heads1 his sunny flesh1 his gleaming jewels on black velvet4 ,i see again his rays of light in the night1 his trailing gold in the shade1 the dawning of suns through dark arches40 ,the humble bloater has surely never before been sung in language which recalls the ,beloved of the 8,song of ,songs40 ,huysmans has carried to an even extravagant degree that re-valuation of the world's good in which genius has ever found its chief function4 ,to abase the mighty and exalt the humble seems to man the divinest of prerogatives1 for it is that which he himself exercises in his moments of finest inspiration4 ,to find a new vision of the world1 a new path to truth1 is the instinct of the artist or the thinker4 ,he changes the whole system of our organised perceptions4 ,that is why he seems to us at first an incarnate paradox1 a scoffer at our most sacred verities1 making mountains of our mole-hills and counting as mere mole-hills our everlasting mountains1 always keeping time to a music that clashes with ours1 at our hilarity tristis1 in tristitia hilaris4 ,in #ahhi ,a ,rebours appeared4 ,not perhaps his greatest achievement1 it must ever remain the central work in which he has most powerfully concentrated his whole vision of life4 ,it sums up the progress he had already made1 foretells the progress he was afterwards to make1 in a style that is always individual1 always masterly in its individuality4 ,technically1 it may be said that the power of ,a ,rebours lies in the fact that here for the first time ,huysmans has succeeded in uniting the two lines of his literary development3 the austere analysis in the novels of commonplace things mostly alien to the writer1 and the freer elaboration in the prose-poems of his own more intimate personal impressions4 ,in their union the two streams attain a new power and a more intimately personal note4 ,des ,esseintes1 the hero of this book1 may possibly have been at a few points suggested by a much less interesting real personage in contemporary ,paris1 the ,comte de ,montesquiou-,fezensac1 but in the main he was certainly created by ,huysmans' own brain1 as the representative of his author's hypersthetic experience of the world and the mouthpiece of his most personal judgments4 ,the victim of over-wrought nerves1 of neuralgia and dyspepsia1 ,des ,esseintes retires for a season from ,paris to the solitude of his country house at ,fontenay1 which he has fitted up1 on almost cloistral methods1 to soothe his fantasy and to gratify his complex sthetic sensations1 his love of reading and contemplation4 ,the finest pictures of ,gustave ,moreau hang on the walls1 with the fantastic engravings of ,luyken1 and the strange visions of ,odilon ,redon4 ,he has a tortoise curiously inlaid with precious stones2 he delights in all those exotic plants which reveal ,nature's most unnatural freaks2 he is a sensitive amateur of perfumes1 and considers that the pleasures of smell are equal to those of sight or sound2 he possesses a row of little barrels of liqueurs so arranged that he can blend in infinite variety the contents of this instrument1 his 8mouth-organ0 he calls it1 and produce harmonies which seem to him comparable to those yielded by a musical orchestra4 ,but the solitary pleasures of this palace of art only increase the nervous strain he is suffering from2 and at the urgent bidding of his doctor ,des ,esseintes returns to the society of his abhorred fellow-beings in ,paris1 himself opening the dyke that admitted the 8waves of human mediocrity0 to engulf his refuge4 ,and this wonderful confession of sthetic faith--with its long series of deliberately searching and decisive affirmations on life1 religion1 literature1 art--ends with a sudden solemn invocation that is surprisingly tremulous3 8,take pity1 ,o ,lord1 on the ,christian who doubts1 on the sceptic who desires to believe1 on the convict of life who embarks alone1 in the night1 beneath a sky no longer lit by the consoling beacons of ancient faith40 8,he who carries his own most intimate emotions to their highest point becomes the first in file of a long series of men20 that saying is peculiarly true of ,huysmans4 ,but to be a leader of men one must turn one's back on men4 ,huysmans' attitude towards his readers was somewhat like that of ,thoreau1 who spoke with lofty disdain of such writers as 8would fain have one reader before they die40 ,as he has since remarked1 ,huysmans wrote ,a ,rebours for a dozen persons1 and was himself more surprised than any one at the wide interest it evoked4 ,yet that interest was no accident4 ,certain sthetic ideals of the latter half of the nineteenth century are more quintessentially expressed in ,a ,rebours than in any other book4 ,intensely personal1 audaciously independent1 it yet sums up a movement which has scarcely now worked itself out4 ,we may read it and re-read1 not only for the light which it casts on that movement1 but upon every similar period of acute sthetic perception in the past4 ,,ii4 ,the sthetic attitude towards art which ,a ,rebours illuminates is that commonly called decadent4 ,decadence in art1 though a fairly simple phenomenon1 and world-wide as art itself1 is still so ill understood that it may be worth while to discuss briefly its precise nature1 more especially as manifested in literature4 ,technically1 a decadent style is only such in relation to a classic style4 ,it is simply a further development of a classic style1 a further specialisation1 the homogeneous1 in ,spencerian phraseology1 having become heterogeneous4 ,the first is beautiful because the parts are subordinated to the whole2 the second is beautiful because the whole is subordinated to the parts4 ,among our own early prose-writers ,sir ,thomas ,browne represents the type of decadence in style4 ,swift's prose is classic1 ,pater's decadent4 ,hume and ,gibbon are classic1 ,emerson and ,carlyle decadent4 ,in architecture1 which is the key to all the arts1 we see the distinction between the classic and the decadent visibly demonstrated2 ,roman architecture is classic1 to become in its ,byzantine developments completely decadent1 and ,st4 ,mark's is the perfected type of decadence in art2 pure early ,gothic1 again1 is strictly classic in the highest degree because it shows an absolute subordination of detail to the bold harmonies of structure1 while later ,gothic1 grown weary of the commonplaces of structure and predominantly interested in beauty of detail1 is again decadent4 ,in each case the earlier and classic manner--for the classic manner1 being more closely related to the ends of utility1 must always be earlier--subordinates the parts to the whole1 and strives after those virtues which the whole may best express2 the later manner depreciates the importance of the whole for the benefit of its parts1 and strives after the virtues of individualism4 ,all art is the rising and falling of the slopes of a rhythmic curve between these two classic and decadent extremes4 ,decadence suggests to us going down1 falling1 decay4 ,if we walk down a real hill we do not feel that we commit a more wicked act than when we walked up it4 ,but if it is a figurative hill then we view ,hell at the bottom4 ,the word 8corruption0--used in a precise and technical sense to indicate the breaking up of the whole for the benefit of its parts--serves also to indicate a period or manner of decadence in art4 ,this makes confusion worse1 for here the moralist feels that surely he is on safe ground4 ,but as ,nietzsche1 with his usual acuteness in cutting at the root of vulgar prejudice1 has well remarked 7in ,die frhliche ,wissenschaft71 even as regards what is called the period of 8corruption0 in the evolution of societies1 we are apt to overlook the fact that the energy which in more primitive times marked the operations of the community as a whole has now simply been transferred to the individuals themselves1 and this aggrandisement of the individual really produces an even greater amount of energy4 ,the individual has gained more than the community has lost4 ,an age of social decadence is not only the age of sinners and degenerates1 but of saints and martyrs1 and decadent ,rome produced an ,antoninus as well as a ,heliogabalus4 ,no doubt social 8corruption0 and literary 8corruption0 tend to go together2 an age of individualism is usually an age of artistic decadence1 and we may note that the chief literary artists of ,america--,poe1 ,hawthorne1 ,whitman--are for the most part in the technical sense decadents4 ,rome supplies the first clear types of classic and decadent literature1 and the small group of recent ,french writers to whom the term has been more specifically applied were for the most part peculiarly attracted by later ,latin literature4 ,so far as ,i can make out1 it is to the profound and penetrating genius of ,baudelaire that we owe the first clear apprehension of the legitimate part which decadence plays in literature4 ,we may trace it1 indeed1 in his own style1 clear1 pure1 and correct as that style always remains1 as well as in his literary preferences4 ,he was a good ,latinist1 and his favourite ,latin authors were ,apuleius1 ,juvenal1 ,petronius1 ,saint ,augustine1 ,tertullian1 and other writers in prose and verse of the early ,christian ,church4 ,he himself wrote a love-poem in rhymed ,latin verse1 adding to it a note concerning the late ,latin decadence regarded as 8the supreme sigh of a vigorous person already transformed and prepared for the spiritual life10 and specially apt to express passion as the modern world feels it1 one pole of the magnet at the opposite end of which are ,catullus and his band4 8,in this marvellous tongue10 he added1 8solecism and barbarism seem to me to render the forced negligences of a passion which forgets itself and mocks at rules4 ,words taken in a new meaning reveal the charming awkwardness of the northern barbarian kneeling before the ,roman beauty40 ,but the best early statement of the meaning of decadence in style--though doubtless inspired by ,baudelaire--was furnished by ,gautier in #ahfh in the course of the essay on ,baudelaire which is probably the most interesting piece of criticism he ever achieved4 ,the passage is long1 but so precise and accurate that it must here in part be quoted3 8,the poet of the ,fleurs du ,mal loved what is improperly called the style of decadence1 and which is nothing else but art arrived at that point of extreme maturity yielded by the slanting suns of aged civilisations3 an ingenious complicated style1 full of shades and of research1 constantly pushing back the boundaries of speech1 borrowing from all the technical vocabularies1 taking colour from all palettes and notes from all key-boards1 struggling to render what is most inexpressible in thought1 what is vague and most elusive in the outlines of form1 listening to translate the subtle confidences of neurosis1 the dying confessions of passion grown depraved1 and the strange hallucinations of the obsession which is turning to madness4 ,the style of decadence is the ultimate utterance of the ,word1 summoned to final expression and driven to its last hiding-place4 ,one may recall in this connection the language of the later ,roman ,empire1 already marbled with the greenness of decomposition1 and1 so to speak1 gamy1 and the complicated refinements of the ,byzantine school1 the last forms of ,greek art falling into deliquescence4 ,such indeed is the necessary and inevitable idiom of peoples and civilisations in which factitious life has replaced natural life1 and developed unknown wants in men4 ,it is1 besides1 no easy thing1 this style disdained of pedants1 for it expresses new ideas in new forms1 and in words which have not yet been heard4 ,unlike the classic style it admits shadow4444 ,one may well imagine that the fourteen hundred words of the ,racinian vocabulary scarcely suffice the author who has undertaken the laborious task of rendering modern ideas and things in their infinite complexity and multiple colouration40 ,some fifteen years later1 ,bourget1 again in an essay on ,baudelaire 7,essais de ,psychologie ,contemporaine71 continued the exposition of the theory of decadence1 elaborating the analogy to the social organism which enters the state of decadence as soon as the individual life of the parts is no longer subordinated to the whole4 8,a similar law governs the development and decadence of that other organism which we call language4 ,a style of decadence is one in which the unity of the book is decomposed to give place to the independence of the page1 in which the page is decomposed to give place to the independence of the phrase1 and the phrase to give place to the independence of the word40 ,it was at this time 7about #ahhd7 that the term 8decadent0 seems first to have been applied by ,barrs and others to the group of which ,verlaine1 ,huysmans1 ,mallarm were the most distinguished members1 and in so far as it signified an ardent and elaborate search for perfection of detail beyond that attained by ,parnassian classicality it was tolerated or accepted4 ,verlaine1 indeed1 was for the most part indifferent to labels1 neither accepting nor rejecting them1 and his work was not bound up with any theory4 ,but ,huysmans1 with the intellectual passion of the pioneer in art1 deliberate and relentless1 has carried both the theory and the practice of decadence in style to the farthest point4 ,in practice he goes beyond ,baudelaire1 who1 however enamoured he may have been of what he called the phosphorescence of putrescence1 always retained in his own style much of what is best in the classic manner4 ,huysmans' vocabulary is vast1 his images1 whether remote or familiar1 always daring1--8dragged10 in the words of one critic1 8by the hair or by the feet1 down the worm-eaten staircase of terrified ,syntax10--but a heart-felt pulse of emotion is restrained beneath the sombre and extravagant magnificence of this style1 and imparts at the best that modulated surge of life which only the great masters can control4 ,des ,esseintes's predilections in literature are elaborated through several chapters1 and without question he faithfully reflects his creator's impressions4 ,he was indifferent or contemptuous towards the writers of the ,latin ,augustan age2 ,virgil seemed to him thin and mechanical1 ,horace a detestable clown2 the fat redundancy of ,cicero1 we are told1 and the dry constipation of ,csar alike disgusted him2 ,sallust1 ,livy1 ,juvenal1 even ,tacitus and ,plautus1 though for these he had words of praise1 seemed to him for the most part merely the delights of pseudo-literary readers4 ,latin only began to be interesting to ,des ,esseintes in ,lucan1 for here at least1 in spite of the underlying hollowness1 it became expressive and studded with brilliant jewels4 ,the author whom above all he delighted in was ,petronius--who reminded ,des ,esseintes of the modern ,french novelists he most admired--and several eloquent pages are devoted to that profound observer1 delicate analyst1 and marvellous painter who modelled his own vivid and precise style out of all the idioms and slang of his day4 ,after ,petronius there was a gap in his collection of ,latin authors until the second century of our own era is reached with ,apuleius and the sterner ,christian contemporaries of that jovial pagan1 ,tertullian and the rest1 in whose hands the tongue that in ,petronius had reached supreme maturity now began to dissolve4 ,for ,tertullian he had little admiration1 and none for ,augustine1 though sympathising with his ,city of ,god and his general disgust for the world4 ,but the special odour which the ,christians had by the fourth century imparted to decomposing pagan ,latin was delightful to him in such authors as ,commodian of ,gaza1 whose tawny1 sombre1 and tortuous style he even preferred to ,claudian's sonorous blasts1 in which the trumpet of paganism was last heard in the world4 ,he was also able to maintain interest in ,prudentius1 ,sedulius1 and a host of unknown ,christians who combined ,catholic fervour with a ,latinity which had become1 as it were1 completely putrid1 leaving but a few shreds of torn flesh for the ,christians to 8marinate in the brine of their new tongue40 ,his shelves continued to show ,latin books of the sixth1 seventh1 and eighth centuries1 among which he found special pleasure in the ,anglo-,saxon writers1 and only finally ceased at the beginning of the tenth century1 when 8the curiosity1 the complicated navet0 of the earlier tongue were finally lost in scholastic philosophy and mere cartalaries and chronicles4#h ,then1 with a formidable leap of ten centuries1 his ,latin books gave place to nineteenth century ,french books4 ,des ,esseintes is no admirer of ,rabelais or ,molire1 of ,voltaire or ,rousseau4 ,among the older ,french writers he read only ,villon1 ,d',aubign1 ,bossuet1 ,bourdaloue1 ,nicole1 and especially ,pascal4 ,putting these aside1 his ,french library began with ,baudelaire1 whose works he had printed in an edition of one copy1 in episcopal letters1 in large missal format1 bound in flesh-coloured pig-skin2 he found an unspeakable delight in reading this poet who1 8in an age when verse only served to express the external aspects of things1 had succeeded in expressing the inexpressible1 by virtue of a muscular and sinewy speech which more than any other possessed the marvellous power of fixing with strange sanity of expression the most morbid1 fleeting1 tremulous states of weary brains and sorrowful souls40 ,after ,baudelaire the few ,french books on ,des ,esseintes's shelves fall into two groups1 one religious1 one secular4 ,most of the ,french clerical writers he disregarded1 for they yield a pale flux of words which seemed to him to come from a school-girl in a convent4 ,lacordaire he regarded as an exception1 for his language had been fused and moulded by ardent eloquence1 but for the most part the ,catholic writers he preferred were outside the ,church4 ,for ,hello's ,homme1 especially1 he cherished profound admiration1 and an inevitable sympathy for its author1 who seemed to him 8a cunning engineer of the soul1 a skilful watchmaker of the brain1 delighting to examine the mechanism of a passion and to explain the play of the wheelwork10 and yet united to this power of analysis all the fanaticism of a ,biblical prophet1 and the tortured ingenuity of a master of style--an ill-balanced1 incoherent1 yet subtle personality4 ,but above all he delighted in ,barbey d',aurevilly1 shut out from the ,church as an unclean and pestiferous heretic1 yet glorying to sing her praises1 insinuating into that praise a note of almost sadistic sacrilege1 a writer at once devout and impious1 altogether after ,des ,esseintes's own heart1 so that a special copy of the ,diaboliques1 in episcopal violet and cardinal purple1 printed on sanctified vellum with initials adorned by satanic tails1 formed one of his most cherished possessions4 ,in ,d',aurevilly's style alone he truly recognised the same gaminess1 the speckled morbidity1 the flavour as of a sleepy pear which he loved in decadent ,latin and the monastic writers of old time4 ,of contemporary secular books he possessed not many2 by force of passing them through the screw-press of his brain few were finally found solid enough to emerge intact and bear rereading1 and in this process he had accelerated 8the incurable conflict which existed between his ideas and those of the world into which by chance he had been born40 ,certain selected works of the three great ,french novelists of his time--,flaubert1 ,goncourt1 and ,zola--still remained1 for in all three he found in various forms that 8nostalgie des au-del0 by which he was himself haunted2 and with ,baudelaire1 these three were1 in modern profane literature1 the authors by whom he had chiefly been moulded4 ,the scanty collection also included ,verlaine1 ,mallarm1 ,poe1 and ,villiers de l',isle-,adam1 whose firm fantastic style and poignantly ironic attitude towards the utilitarian modern world he found entirely to his taste4 ,finally1 there only remained the little anthology of prose-poems4 ,des ,esseintes thought it improbable that he would ever make any additions to his library2 it seemed impossible to him that a decadent language--8struggling on its death-bed to repair all the omissions of joy and bequeath the subtlest memories of pain0--would ever go beyond ,mallarm4 ,this brief summary of the three chapters1 all full of keen if wayward critical insight1 which describe ,des ,esseintes's library1 may serve at once both to indicate the chief moulding influences on ,huysmans' own style and to illustrate the precise nature of decadence in art and the fundamental part it plays4 ,we have to recognise that decadence is an sthetic and not a moral conception4 ,the power of words is great1 but they need not befool us4 ,the classic herring should suggest no moral superiority over the decadent bloater4 ,we are not called upon to air our moral indignation over the bass end of the musical clef4 ,all confusion of intellectual substances is foolish1 and one may well sympathise with that fervid unknown metaphysician to whom we owe the ,athanasian creed when he went so far as to assert that it is damnable4 ,it is not least so in the weak-headed decadent who falls into the moralist's snare and complacently admits his own exceeding wickedness4 ,we may well reserve our finest admiration for the classic in art1 for therein are included the largest and most imposing works of human skill2 but our admiration is of little worth if it is founded on incapacity to appreciate the decadent4 ,each has its virtues1 each is equally right and necessary4 ,one ignorant of plants might well say1 on gazing at a seed-capsule with its seeds disposed in harmonious rows1 that there was the eternally natural and wholesome order of things1 and on seeing the same capsule wither and cast abroad its seeds to germinate at random in the earth1 that here was an unwholesome and deplorable period of decay4 ,but he would know little of the transmutations of life4 ,and we have to recognise that those persons who bring the same crude notions into the field of art know as little of the life of the spirit4 ,,iii4 ,for some years after the appearance of ,a ,rebours ,huysmans produced nothing of any magnitude4 ,en ,rade1 his next novel1 the experience of a ,parisian married couple who1 under the stress of temporary pecuniary difficulties1 go into the country to stay at an uncle's farm1 dwells in the memory chiefly by virtue of two vividly naturalistic episodes1 the birth of a calf and the death of a cat4 ,more interesting1 more intimately personal1 are the two volumes of art criticism1 ,l',art ,moderne and ,certains1 which ,huysmans published at about this period4 ,degas1 ,rops1 ,raffaelli1 ,odilon ,redon are among the artists of very various temperament whom ,huysmans either discovered1 or at all events first appreciated in their full significance1 and when he writes of them it is not alone critical insight which he reveals1 but his own personal vision of the world4 ,to ,huysmans the world has ever been above all a vision2 it was no accident that the art that appeals most purely to the eyes is that of which he has been the finest critic4 ,one is tempted1 indeed1 to suggest that this aptitude is the outcome of heredity1 of long generations devoted to laborious watchfulness of the desire of the eye in the external world1 not indeed by actual accumulation of acquired qualities1 but by the passing on of a nervous organism long found so apt for this task4 ,he has ever been intensely preoccupied with the effort to express those visible aspects of things which the arts of design were made to express1 which the art of speech can perhaps never express4 ,the tortured elaboration of his style is chiefly due to this perpetual effort to squeeze tones and colours out of this foreign medium4 ,the painter's brain holds only a pen and cannot rest until it has wrung from it a brush's work4 ,but not only is the sense of vision marked in ,huysmans4 ,we are conscious of a general hypersthesia1 an intense alertness to the inrush of sensations1 which we might well term morbid if it were not so completely intellectualised and controlled4 ,hearing1 indeed1 appears to be less acutely sensitive than sight1 the poet is subordinated to the painter1 though that sense still makes itself felt1 and the heavy multicoloured paragraphs often fall at the close into a melancholy and poignant rhythm laden with sighs4 ,it is the sense of smell which ,huysmans' work would lead us to regard as most highly developed after that of sight4 ,the serious way in which ,des ,esseintes treats perfumes is characteristic1 and one of the most curious and elaborate of the ,croquis ,parisiens is 8,le ,gousset10 in which the capacities of language are strained to define and differentiate the odours of feminine arm-pits4 ,again1 earlier1 in a preface written for ,hannon's ,rimes de ,joie1 ,huysmans points out that that writer--who failed to fulfil his early promise--alone of contemporary poets possessed 8la curiosit des parfums10 and that his chief poem was written in honour of what ,huysmans called 8the libertine virtues of that glorious perfume10 opoponax4 ,this sensitiveness to odour is less marked in ,huysmans' later work1 but the dominance of vision remains4 ,the two volumes of essays on art incidentally serve to throw considerable light on ,huysmans' conception of life4 ,for special illustration we may take his attitude towards women1 whom in his novels he usually treats1 from a rather conventionally sexual point of view1 as a fact in man's life rather than as a subject for independent analysis4 ,in these essays we may trace the development of his own personal point of view1 and in comparing the earlier with the later volume we find a change which is significant of the general evolution of ,huysmans' attitude towards life4 ,he is at once the ultra-modern child of a refined civilisation and the victim of nostalgia for an ascetic medivalism2 his originality lies in the fact that in him these two tendencies are not opposed but harmonious1 although the second has only of late reached full development4 ,in a notable passage in ,en ,rade1 ,jacques1 the hero1 confesses that he can see nothing really great or beautiful in a harvest field1 with its anodyne toil1 as compared with a workshop or a steamboat1 8the horrible magnificence of machines1 that one beauty which the modern world has been able to create40 ,it is so that ,huysmans views women also2 he is as indifferent to the feminine ideals of classic art as to its literary ideals4 ,in ,l',art ,moderne1 speaking with admiration of a study of the nude by ,gauguin1 he proceeds to lament that no one has painted the unclothed modern woman without falsification or premeditated arrangement1 real1 alive in her own intimate personality1 with her own joys and pains incarnated in the curves of her flesh1 and the lash of childbirth traceable on her flanks4 ,we go to the ,louvre to learn how to paint1 he remarks1 forgetting that 8beauty is not uniform and invariable1 but changes with the age and the climate1 that the ,venus of ,milo1 for instance1 is now not more beautiful and interesting than those ancient statues of the ,new ,world1 streaked and tattooed and adorned with feathers2 that both are but diverse manifestations of the same ideal of beauty pursued by different races2 that at the present date there can be no question of reaching the beautiful by ,venetian1 ,greek1 ,dutch1 or ,flemish rites2 but only by striving to disengage it from contemporary life1 from the world that surrounds us40 8,un nu fatigu1 dlicat1 affin1 vibrant0 can alone conform to our own time2 and he adds that no one has truly painted the nude since ,rembrandt4 ,it is instructive to turn from this essay to that on ,degas1 written some six years later4 ,it may fairly be said that to ,degas belongs the honour of taking up the study of the nude at the point where ,rembrandt left it2 and like ,rembrandt1 he has realised that the nude can only be rightly represented in those movements1 postures1 and avocations by which it is naturally and habitually exposed4 ,it is scarcely surprising1 therefore1 that ,huysmans at once grasped the full significance of the painter's achievement4 ,but he has nothing now to say of the beauty that lies beneath the confinement of modern garments1 8the delicious charm of youth1 grown languid1 rendered as it were divine by the debilitating air of cities40 ,on the contrary1 he emphasises the vision which ,degas presents of women at the bath-tub revealing in every 8frog-like and simian attitude0 their pitiful homeliness1 8the humid horror of a body which no washing can purify40 ,such a glorified contempt of the flesh1 he adds1 has never been achieved since the ,middle ,ages4 ,there we catch what had now become the dominant tone in ,huysmans' vision2 the most modern things in art now suggest to him1 they seem to merge into1 the most medival and ascetic4 ,and if we turn to the essay on ,flicien ,rops in the same volume--the most masterly of his essays--we find the same point developed to the utmost4 ,rops in his own way is as modern and as daring an artist of the nude as ,degas4 ,but1 as ,huysmans perceives1 in delineating the essentially modern he is scarcely a supreme artist1 is even inferior to ,forain1 who in his own circumscribed region is insurpassable4 ,rops1 as ,huysmans points out1 is the great artist of the symbolical rather than the naturalistic modern1 a great artist who furnishes the counterpart to ,memlinc and ,fra ,angelico4 ,all art1 ,huysmans proceeds1 8must gravitate1 like humanity which has given birth to it and the earth which carries it1 between the two poles of ,purity and ,wantonness1 the ,heaven and the ,hell of art40 ,rops has taken the latter pole1 in no vulgar nymphomaniacal shapes1 but 8to divulge its causes1 to summarise it ,catholically1 if one may say so1 in ardent and sorrowful images02 he has drawn women who are 8diabolical ,theresas1 satanised saints40 ,following in the path initiated by ,baudelaire and ,barbey ,d',aurevilly1 ,huysmans concludes1 ,rops has restored ,wantonness to her ancient and ,catholic dignity4 ,thus is ,huysmans almost imperceptibly led back to the old standpoint from which woman and the ,devil are one4 ,certains was immediately followed by ,l-bas4 ,this novel is mainly a study of ,satanism1 in which ,huysmans interested himself long before it attracted the general attention it has since received in ,france4 ,there are1 however1 three lines of interest in the book1 the story of ,gilles de ,rais and his ,sadism1 the discussion of ,satanism culminating in an extraordinary description of a modern celebration of the ,black ,mass1 and the narration of ,durtal's liaison with ,madame ,chantelouve1 wherein ,huysmans reaches1 by firm precision and triumphant audacity1 the highest point he has attained in the analysis of the secrets of passion4 ,but though full of excellent matter1 the book loses in impressiveness from the multiplicity of these insufficiently compacted elements of interest4 ,while not among his finest achievements1 however1 it serves to mark the definite attainment of a new stage in both the spirit and the method of his work4 ,hitherto he had been a realist1 in method if not in spirit1 and had conquered the finest secrets of naturalistic art2 by the help of ,en ,mnage alone1 as ,hennequin1 one of his earliest and best critics has said1 8it will always be possible to restore the exact physiognomy of ,paris to-day40 ,at the outset of ,l-bas there is a discussion concerning the naturalistic novel and its functions which makes plain the standpoint to which ,huysmans had now attained4 ,pondering the matter1 ,durtal1 the hero of the book1 considers that we need1 on the one hand1 the veracity of document1 the precision of detail1 the nervous strength of language1 which realism has supplied2 but also1 on the other hand1 we must draw water from the wells of the soul4 ,we cannot explain everything by sexuality and insanity2 we need the soul and the body in their natural reactions1 their conflict and their union4 8,we must1 in short1 follow the great high-way so deeply dug out by ,zola1 but it is also necessary to trace a parallel path in the air1 another road by which we may reach the ,beyond and the ,afterward1 to achieve thus1 in one word1 a spiritualistic naturalism40 ,dostoievsky comes nearest to this achievement1 he remarks1 and the real psychologist of the century is not ,stendhal but ,hello4 ,in another form of art the early painters--,italian1 ,german1 especially ,flemish--realised this ideal4 ,durtal sees a consummate revelation of such spiritual naturalism in ,matthus ,grnewald's crucifixion at ,cassel--the ,christ who was at once a putrid and unaureoled corpse and yet a manifest god bathed in invisible light1 the union of outrageous realism and outrageous idealism4 8,thus from triumphal ordure ,grnewald extracted the finest mints of dilection1 the sharpest essences of tears40 ,one may say that the tendency ,huysmans here so clearly asserts had ever been present in his work4 ,but in his previous novels his own native impulse was always a little unduly oppressed by the naturalistic formulas of ,goncourt and ,zola4 ,the methods of these great masters had laid a burden on his work1 and although the work developed beneath1 and because of1 that burden1 a sense of laborious pain and obscurity too often resulted4 ,henceforth this disappears4 ,huysmans retains his own complexity of style1 but he has won a certain measure of simplicity and lucidity4 ,it was a natural development1 no doubt furthered also by the position which ,huysmans had now won in the world of letters4 ,a ,rebours1 which he had written for his own pleasure1 had found an echo in thousands of readers1 and the consciousness of an audience inspired a certain clarity of speech4 ,from this time we miss the insults directed at the btise of humanity4 ,these characteristics clearly mark ,huysmans' next and perhaps greatest book1 in which the writer who had conquered all the secrets of decadent art now sets his face towards the ideals of classic art4 ,in ,en ,route1 indeed1 these new qualities of simplicity1 lucidity1 humanity1 and intensity of interest attain so high a degree that the book has reached a vast number of readers who could not realise the marvellous liberation from slavery to its material which the slow elaboration of art has here reached4 ,in ,a ,rebours ,huysmans succeeded in taking up the prose-poem into his novel form1 while at the same time certainly sacrificing something of the fine analysis of familiar things which he had developed in ,en ,mnage4 ,in ,en ,route he takes the novel from the point he had reached in ,a ,rebours1 incorporates into it that power of analysis which has now reached incomparable simplicity and acuity1 and thus wields the whole of the artistic means which he has acquired during a quarter of a century to one end1 the presentation of a spiritual state which has become of absorbing personal interest to himself4 ,i well remember hearing ,m4 ,huysmans1 many years ago1 tell how a muddle-headed person had wished to commission him to paint a head of ,christ4 ,it seemed then a deliciously absurd request to make of the author of ,a ,rebours1 and his face wore the patient smile which the spectacle of human stupidity was wont to evoke1 but ,i have since thought that that muddle-headed person was wiser than he knew4 ,as we look back on ,huysmans' earlier work it is now easy to see how he has steadily progressed towards his present standpoint4 ,en ,route does not represent1 as some might imagine1 the reaction of an exhausted debauchee or even the self-deception of a disappointed man of the world4 ,the temperament of ,durtal is that of ,andr and ,folantin and ,des ,esseintes2 from the first1 in the ,drageoir ,epices1 ,huysmans has been an idealist and a seeker1 by no means an ascetic1 rather a man whose inquisitive senses and restless imagination had led him to taste of every forbidden fruit1 but never one to whom the vulgar pleasures of life could offer any abiding satisfaction4 ,the more precise record of ,des ,esseintes's early sexual life may help us here2 while for the penultimate stage ,durtal's relations with ,madame ,chantelouve in ,l-bas1 and the mingled attraction and repulsion which he felt for her1 are certainly significant4 ,in ,en ,route ,durtal magnifies his own wickedness1 as ,bunyan did in his ,grace ,abounding2 the saints have always striven to magnify their wickedness1 leaving to the sinners the congenial function of playing at righteousness4 ,to trace the real permanence of ,huysmans' attitude towards religion it is enough to turn back to ,a ,rebours4 ,des ,esseintes had been educated by the ,jesuits1 and it sometimes seemed to him that that education had put into him some extra-terrestrial ferment which never after ceased to work1 driving him in search of a new world and impossible ideals4 ,he could find no earthly place of rest2 he sought to build for himself a 8refined ,thebaid0 as a warm and comfortable ark wherein to find shelter from the flood of human imbecility4 ,he was already drawn towards the ,church by many bonds1 by his predilection for early ,christian ,latinity1 by the exquisite beauty of the ecclesiastical art of the ,middle ,ages1 by his love for monastic medival music1 8that emaciated music which acted instinctively on his nerves0 and seemed to him precious beyond all other4 ,just as ,nietzsche was always haunted by the desire for a monastery for freethinkers1 so ,des ,esseintes dreamed of a hermitage1 of the advantages of the cloistered life of convents1 wherein men are persecuted by the world for meting out to it the just contempt of silence4 ,des ,esseintes1 and even the ,durtal of ,l-bas1 always put aside these thoughts with the reflection that1 after all1 the ,church is only an out-worn legend1 a magnificent imposture4 ,in ,en ,route ,durtal has taken a decisive step4 ,he has undergone that psychological experience commonly called 8conversion40 ,it is only of recent years that the phenomena of conversion have been seriously studied1 but we know at all events that it is not intellectual1 not even necessarily moral transformation1 though it may react in either direction1 but primarily an emotional phenomenon2 and that it occurs especially in those who have undergone long and torturing disquietude1 coming at last as the spontaneous resolution of all their doubts1 the eruption of a soothing flood of peace1 the silent explosion of inner light4 ,the insight with which this state is described in ,en ,route seems to testify to a real knowledge of it4 ,no obvious moral or intellectual change is effected in ,durtal1 but he receives a new experience of reposeful faith1 a conviction deeper than all argument4 ,it is really the sudden emergence into consciousness of a very gradual process1 and the concrete artistic temperament which had been subjected to the process reacts in its own way4 ,a more abstract intelligence would have asked3 8,but1 after all1 is my faith true80 ,durtal1 in the presence of the growing structure of sensory and imaginative forms within him1 which has become as it were a home1 feels that the question of its truth has fallen into the background4 ,its perfect fitness has become the affirmation of its truth4 ,henceforth it is the task of his life to learn how best to adapt himself to what he recognises as his eternal home4 ,en ,route represents a stage in this adaptation4 ,by a rare chance--a happier chance than befell ,tolstoi under somewhat similar circumstances--a new development in artistic achievement has here run parallel1 and in exquisite harmony1 with the new spiritual development4 ,the growing simplicity of ,huysmans' work has reached a point beyond which it could not perhaps be carried without injury to his vivid and concrete style4 ,and the new simplicity of spirit1 of which it is the reflection1 marks the final retreat into the background of that unreasonable contempt for humanity which ran through nearly all the previous books1 and now at last passes even into an ecstasy of adoration in the passages concerning old ,simon1 the monastery swine-herd4 ,huysmans has chiefly shown his art1 however1 by relying almost solely for the interest of his book on his now consummate power of analysis4 ,this power1 which we may perhaps first clearly trace in 8,sac au ,dos10 had developed in ,en ,mnage into a wonderful skill to light up the unexplored corners of the soul and to lay bare those terrible thoughts which are1 as he has somewhere said1 the lamentable incarnation of 8the unconscious ignominy of pure souls40 ,in his earlier masterpiece1 ,a ,rebours1 however1 it is little seen1 having mostly passed into sthetic criticism4 ,the finest episode of emotional analysis here is the admirable chapter in which ,des ,esseintes's attempt to visit ,london is narrated4 ,all his life he had wished to see two countries1 ,holland and ,england4 7,and here we may recall that the former is ,huysmans' own ancestral land1 and that his ,french critics find in his work a distinct flavour of ,english humour47 ,he had actually been to ,holland1 and with visions won from the pictures of ,rembrandt1 ,steen1 and ,teniers he had returned disillusioned4 ,now he went to ,galignani's1 bought an ,english ,baedeker1 entered the bodega in the ,rue de ,rivoli to drink of that port which the ,english love1 and then proceeded to a tavern opposite the ,gare ,st4 ,lazare to eat what he imagined to be a characteristic ,english meal1 surrounded by ,english people1 and haunted by memories of ,dickens4 ,and as time went by he continued to sit still1 while all the sensations of ,england seemed to pass along his nerves1 still sat until at last the ,london mail had started4 8,why stir10 he asked himself1 8when one can travel so magnificently in a chair8444 ,besides1 what can one expect save fresh disillusionment1 as in ,holland8444 ,and then ,i have experienced and seen what ,i wanted to experience and see4 ,i have saturated myself with ,english life2 it would be madness to lose by an awkward change of place these imperishable sensations4444 ,he called a cab and returned with his portmanteaus1 parcels1 valises1 rugs1 umbrellas1 and sticks to ,fontenay1 feeling the physical and mental fatigue of a man who returns home after a long and perilous journey40 ,there could be no happier picture of the imaginative life of the artistic temperament4 ,but in ,en ,route analysis is the prime element of interest2 from first to last there is nothing to hold us but this searching and poignant analysis of the fluctuations of ,durtal's soul through the small section which he here travels in the road towards spiritual peace4 ,and on the way1 lightly1 as by chance1 the author drops the finest appreciations of liturgical sthetics1 of plain-chant1 of the way of the ,church with the soul1 of the everlasting struggle with the ,evil ,one4 ,there could1 for instance1 be no better statement than this of one of the mystic's secrets3 8,there are two ways of ridding ourselves of a thing which burdens us1 casting it away or letting it fall4 ,to cast away requires an effort of which we may not be capable1 to let fall imposes no labour1 is simpler1 without peril1 within reach of all4 ,to cast away1 again1 implies a certain interest1 a certain animation1 even a certain fear2 to let fall is absolute indifference1 absolute contempt2 believe me1 use this method1 and ,satan will flee40 ,how many forms of ,satan there are in the world before which we may profitably meditate on these words6 ,to strive or cry in the face of human stupidity is not the way to set it to flight2 that is the lesson which ,des ,esseintes would never listen to1 which ,durtal has at last learnt4#i ,en ,route is the first of a trilogy1 and the names of the succeeding volumes1 ,la ,cathdrale and ,l',oblat1 sufficiently indicate the end of the path on which ,durtal1 if not indeed his creator1 has started4 ,but however that may prove1 whatever ,huysmans' own final stage may be1 there can be little doubt that he is the greatest master of style1 and within his own limits the subtlest thinker and the acutest psychologist who in ,france to-day uses the medium of the novel4 ,only ,zola can be compared with him1 and between them there can be no kind of rivalry4 ,zola1 with his immense and exuberant temperament1 his sanity and width of view1 his robust and plebeian art1 has his own place on the high-road of modern literature4 ,huysmans1 an intellectual and sthetic aristocrat1 has followed with unflinching sincerity the by-path along which his own more high-strung and exceptional temperament has led him1 and his place1 if seemingly a smaller one1 is at least as sure2 wherever men occupy themselves with the literature of the late nineteenth century they will certainly sometimes talk about ,zola1 sometimes read ,huysmans4 ,zola's cyclopean architecture can only be seen as a whole when we have completed the weary task of investigating it in detail2 in ,huysmans we seek the expressiveness of the page1 the sentence1 the word4 ,strange as it may seem to some1 it is the so-called realist who has given us the more idealised rendering of life2 the concentrated vision of the idealist in his own smaller sphere has revealed not alone mysteries of the soul1 but even the exterior secrets of life4 ,true it is that ,huysmans has passed by with serene indifference1 or else with contempt1 the things which through the ages we have slowly learnt to count beautiful4 ,but on the other hand1 he has helped to enlarge the sphere of our delight by a new vision of beauty where before to our eyes there was no beauty1 exercising the proper function of the artist who ever chooses the base and despised things of the world1 even the things that are not1 to put to nought the things that are4 ,therein the decadent has his justification4 ,and while we may accept the pioneer's new vision of beauty1 we are not called upon to reject those old familiar visions for which he has no eyes1 only because his gaze must be fixed upon that unfamiliar height towards which he is leading the men who come after4 ,,iv4 ,huysmans very exquisitely represents one aspect of the complex modern soul1 that aspect which shrinks from the grosser forces of ,nature1 from the bare simplicity of the naked sky or the naked body1 the 8incessant deluge of human foolishness10 the eternal oppression of the commonplace1 to find a sedative for its exasperated nerves in the contemplation of esoteric beauty and the difficult search for the mystic peace which passes all understanding4 8,needs must ,i rejoice beyond the age10 runs the motto from the old ,flemish mystic ,ruysbroeck set on the front of ,a ,rebours1 8though the world has horror of my joy and its grossness cannot understand what ,i would say40 ,such is decadence2 such1 indeed1 is religion1 in the wide and true sense of the word4 ,christianity itself1 as we know it in the western church1 sprang from the baptism of young barbarism into ,latin decadence4 ,pagan art and its clear serenity1 science1 rationalism1 the bright1 rough vigour of the sun and the sea1 the adorable mystery of common life and commonplace human love1 are left to make up the spirit that in any age we call 8classic40 ,thus what we call classic corresponds on the spiritual side to the love of natural things1 and what we call decadent to the research for the things which seem to lie beyond ,nature4 8,corporea pulchritudo in pelle solummodo constat4 ,nam si viderent homines hoc quod subtus pellem est1 sicut lynces in ,beotia cernere interiore dicuntur1 mulieres videre nausearent4 ,iste decor in flegmate et sanguine et humore ac felle constitit40 ,that is ,st4 ,odo of ,cluny's acute analysis of woman1 who for man is ever the symbol of ,nature3 beauty is skin-deep1 drowned in excretions which we should scarcely care to touch with the finger's tip4 ,and for the classic vision of ,nature1 listen to that fantastic and gigantic ,englishman1 ,sir ,kenelm ,digby1 whose ,memoirs1 whose whole personality1 embodied the final efflorescence of the pagan ,english ,renaissance4 ,he has been admitted by her maids to the bedchamber of ,venetia ,stanley1 the famous beauty who afterwards became his wife2 she is still sleeping1 and he cannot resist the temptation to undress and lie gently and reverently beside her1 as half disturbed in her slumber she rolled on to her side from beneath the clothes2 8and her smock was so twisted about her fair body that all her legs and the best part of her thighs were naked1 which lay so one over the other that they made a deep shadow where the never-satisfied eyes wished for the greatest light4 ,a natural ruddiness did shine through the skin1 as the sunbeams do through crystal or water1 and ascertained him that it was flesh that he gazed upon1 which yet he durst not touch for fear of melting it1 so like snow it looked4 ,her belly was covered with her smock1 which it raised up with a gentle swelling1 and expressed the perfect figure of it through the folds of that discourteous veil4 ,her paps were like two globes--wherein the glories of the heaven and the earth were designed1 and the azure veins seemed to divide constellations and kingdoms--between both which began the milky way which leadeth lovers to their ,paradise1 somewhat shadowed by the yielding downwards of the uppermost of them as she lay upon her side1 and out of that darkness did glisten a few drops of sweat like diamond sparks1 and a more fragrant odour than the violets or primroses1 whose season was nearly passed1 to give way to the warmer sun and the longest days40 ,they play with the same counters1 you observe1 these two1 ,odo and ,digby1 with skin1 sweat1 and so forth1 each placing upon them his own values4 ,idealists both of them1 the one idealises along the line of death1 the other along the line of life which the whole race has followed1 and both on their own grounds are irrefutable1 the logic of life and the logic of death1 alike solidly founded in the very structure of the world1 of which man is the measuring-rod4 ,the classic party of ,nature seems1 indeed1 the stronger--in seeming only1 and one recalls that1 of the two witnesses just cited1 the abbot of ,cluny was the most venerated man of his age1 while no one troubled even to publish ,digby's ,memoirs until our own century--but it carries weakness in its very strength1 the weakness of a great political party formed by coalition4 ,it has not alone idealists on its side1 but for the most part also the blind forces of robust vulgarity4 ,so that the more fine-strung spirits are sometimes driven to a reaction against ,nature and rationalism1 like that of which ,huysmans1 from 8,l',extase0 onwards1 has been the consistent representative4 ,at the present moment such a reaction has attained a certain ascendency4 ,christianity once fitted nearly every person born into the ,european world2 there must needs be some to whom1 in no modern devitalised form but in its purest essence1 it is still the one refuge possible4 ,no doubt conditions have changed2 the very world itself is not what it was to the medival man4 ,one has to recognise that the modern ,european differs in this from his medival ancestor that now we know how largely the world is of our own making4 ,the sense of interiority1 as the psychologists say1 is of much later development than the sense of exteriority4 ,for the medival man1--as still to-day for the child in the darkness1--his dreams and his fancies1 every organic thrill in eye or ear1 seemed to be flashed on him from a world of angels and demons without4 ,in a sense which is scarcely true to-day the average man of those days--not the finer or the coarser natures1 it may well be--might be said to be the victim of a species of madness1 a paranoia1 a systematised persecutional delusion4 ,he could not look serenely in the face of the stars or lie at rest among the fir-cones in the wood1 for who knew what ambush of the ,enemy might not lurk behind these things8 ,even in flowers1 as ,st4 ,cyprian said1 the ,enemy lay hidden4 8,nil jocundum1 nil amnum1 ,nil salubre1 nil serenum1 ,nihil dulce1 nihil plenum40 ,there was only one spot where men might huddle together in safety--the church4 ,there the blessed sound of the bells1 the contact of holy water1 the smell of incense1 the sight of the ,divine ,flesh1 wove a spiritual coat of mail over every sensory avenue to the soul4 ,the winds of hell might rave1 the birds of night dash themselves against the leaden spires of that fortress whence alone the sky seemed blue with hope4 ,huysmans1 notwithstanding a very high degree of intellectual subtlety1 is by virtue of his special sthetic and imaginative temperament carried back to the more childlike attitude of this earlier age4 ,the whole universe appears to him as a process of living images2 he cannot reason in abstractions1 cannot rationalise2 that indeed is why he is inevitably an artist4 ,thus he is a born leader in a certain modern emotional movement4 ,that movement1 as we know1 is one of a group of movements now peculiarly active4 ,we see them on every hand1 occultism1 theosophy1 spiritualism1 all those vague forms on the borderland of the unknown which call to tired men weary of too much living1 or never strong enough to live at all1 to hide their faces from the sun of nature and grope into cool1 delicious darkness1 soothing the fever of life4 ,it is foolish to resent this tendency2 it has its rightness2 it suits some1 who may well cling to their private dream if life itself is but a dream4 ,at the worst we may remember that1 however repugnant such movements may be1 to let fall remains a better way of putting ,satan to flight than to cast away4 ,and at the best one should know that this is part of the vital process by which the spiritual world moves on its axis1 alternating between darkness and light4 ,therefore soak yourself in mysticism1 follow every intoxicating path to every impossible ,beyond1 be drunken with medivalism1 occultism1 spiritualism1 theosophy1 and even1 if you will1 protestantism--the cup that cheers1 possibly1 but surely not inebriates--for the satisfaction that comes of all these is good while it lasts4 ,yet be sure that ,nature is your home1 and that from the farthest excursions you will return the more certainly to those fundamental instincts which are rooted in the zoological series at the summit of which we stand4 ,for the whole spiritual cosmogony finally rests1 not indeed on a tortoise1 but on the emotional impulses of the mammal vertebrate which constitute us men4 ,meanwhile we will not grieve because in the course of our pilgrimage on earth the sun sets4 ,it has always risen again4 ,we may lighten the darkness of the journey by admiring the beauty of night1 plucking back the cowl if needs must we wear it4--,eia1 fratres1 pergamus4 ,,footnotes3 ,footnote #h3 ,it may be gathered from the ,preface he wrote at a later date for ,m4 ,remy de ,gourmont's delightful volume1 ,le ,latin ,mystique1 that ,huysmans would no longer draw a line at this point2 for he here speaks with enthusiasm of the styles of ,st4 ,bernard1 ,st4 ,bonaventure1 and ,st4 ,thomas d',aquinas4 ,footnote #i3 ,in the seventeenth century a great ,english man of science1 ,stephen ,hales1 had discovered the same truth1 for we are told that 8he could look even upon wicked men1 and those who did him unkind offices1 without any emotion of particular indignation1 not from want of discernment or sensibility2 but he used to consider them only like those experiments which1 upon trial1 he found could never be applied to any useful purpose1 and which he therefore calmly and dispassionately laid aside40 ,,st4 ,,francis ,,and ,,others4 ,,the religion of ,jesus was the invention of a race which itself never accepted that religion4 ,in the ,east religions spring up1 for the most part1 as naturally as flowers1 and1 like flowers1 are scarcely a matter for furious propaganda4 ,these deep sagacious ,eastern men threw us of old this rejected flower1 as they have since sent us the vases and fans they found too tawdry2 and when we send our missionaries out to barter back the gift at a profit1 they say no word1 but their faces wear the mysterious ,eastern smile4 ,yet for us1 at all events1 the figure of ,jesus symbolises1 and will always symbolise1 a special attitude towards life1 made up of tender human sympathy and mystical reliance on the unseen forces of the world4 ,in certain stories of the ,gospels1 certain sayings1 in many of the parables1 this attitude finds the completest expression of its sweetest abandonment4 ,but to us1 men of another race living in far distant corners of the world1 it seems altogether oriental and ascetic1 a morbid exceptional phenomenon4 ,and as a matter of fact ,jesus found no successor4 ,over the stage of those gracious and radiant scenes swiftly fell a fire-proof curtain1 wrought of systematic theology and formal metaphysics1 which even the divine flames of that wonderful personality were unable to melt4 ,something even stronger than theology or metaphysics has served to cut us off from the spirit of ,jesus1 and that is the spirit of ,paul1 certainly the real founder of 8,christianity10 as we know it1 for ,jerome1 ,augustine1 ,luther1 were all the children of ,paul1 and in no respect the children of ,jesus4 ,that marvellous little ,jew painted in its main outlines the picture of ,christianity which in the theatre of this world has for so many centuries shut us off from ,jesus4 ,impelled by the intense and concentrated energy of his twisted suffering nature1 ,paul brought 8moral force0 into our western world1 and after it that infinite procession of hypocrisies and cruelties and artificialities which still trains loathsomely across the scene of civilised life4 ,jesus may have been a visionary1 but his visions were in divine harmony with the course of nature1 with the wine and the bread of life1 with children and with flowers4 ,we may be very sure that ,paul never considered the lilies1 or found benediction with children4 ,he trampled on nature when it came in his way1 and for the rest never saw it4 ,he was not1 as ,festus thought1 a madman1 but whether or not1 as his experiences seem to indicate1 he was a victim to the 8sacred disease0 of epilepsy1 concerning his profoundly neurotic temperament there can be no manner of question4 ,he flung himself on to men1 this terrible apostle of the 8,gentiles10 thrusting faith down their throats at the point of a spiritual sword so fiery and keen that1 by no miracle1 it soon became a sword of steel with red blood dripping from its point4 ,well-nigh everything that has ever been evil in ,christianity1 its temporal power1 its accursed intolerance1 its contempt for reason1 for beautiful living1 for every sweet and sunny and simple aspect of the world--all that is involved in the awful conception of 8moral force0--flows directly from ,paul4 ,what eternal torture could be adequate for so monstrous an offender8 ,and yet1 when you think of the potent personality concentrated in this morbid man1 of his courage1 of the intolerance that he wreaked on himself1 the flashes of divine insight in his restless and turbulent spirit1 of the humility of the neuropath who desired to be 8altogether mad10 the pathos of it all1 indignation falls silent4 ,what can be said8 ,thus ,paul and not ,peter was the rock on which the ,church was built1 and whatever virtues the ,church may have possessed have not been the virtues of ,jesus but the quite other virtues of ,paul4 ,yet ,jesus has not wholly been left without witness even in ,europe1 and it is the special charm and significance of ,francis of ,assisi that he1 if not alone certainly chief among ,european men1 has incarnated some measure of the graciousness that was in ,jesus1 and made it visible and real to the ,european world4 ,and he has done that by no means through the influence of the ,church1 or by imitation1 but by wholly natural and spontaneous impulse4 ,to understand ,francis we must first of all realise that he was in no sense and at no time the creature of the ,church1 being indeed from first to last in a very real sense antagonistic to the ,church4 ,the whole world as ,francis knew it was ,christian1 and he was by no means a man of inquisitive analytic intellectual type1 a ,bruno or a ,campanella2 he accepted ,christianity because it was there1 and while remaining in it was never of it1 resenting fiercely any attempt of the ,church to encroach on the free activity of his personality1 dispensing himself of any intimate adherence not by intellectual sophistries1 but by lightly brushing away science and theology altogether as useless superfluities4 ,an acute psychologist has well remarked that those famous historical persons who have passed through two antithetical phases of character1 survive for us usually only in one of those phases1 that we can remember only the post-conversion ,augustine and the pre-abdication ,diocletian4 ,such one-sided views of great and complex characters suit our rough and lazy methods of ordinary thought1 content to regard a man only on that side which has been most prominently displayed to the world4 ,but such methods are fatal to any clear psychological conception of character or to any sound ethical conception of life4 ,francis lived one of these double-sided lives1 and the ,francis we remember is the emaciated saint already developing the stigmata of divine grace4 ,in his earlier biographies we catch glimpses of a younger and quite other ,francis1 in vanitatibus nutritus insolenter1 the spendthrift companion of nobles1 proud to surpass them in youthful extravagance and dissipation1 the head of a band which dazzled the citizens of ,assisi with the luxury of their rich garments and the sound of their festive songs by night1 a passionate lover of chivalry and the troubadours1 whose music then filled the air1 so full of gaiety that he sometimes seemed almost mad to the grave citizens of his town1 one whose nature it was from the first to go to excess1 always to a fine and generous excess1 that spiritual excess which ,blake called the road to the palace of wisdom4 ,the later ,francis survived2 the early ,francis is forgotten4 ,but we may be assured that there would have been no ,francis the saint if there had not been ,francis the sinner4 ,that grace and elation1 the tender humanity and infinite delight in natural things1 even the profound contempt for luxury and superfluity1 were not learnt in any of the saint's beloved ,umbrian cells2 they were the final outcome of a beautifully free and excessive life acting on an exquisitely fine-strung organism4 ,rarely has any follower of ,francis attained in any measure to his level of exalted freedom1 joy1 and simplicity in saintliness4 ,it was not alone that they could not possess his organism1 but they had not lived his life4 ,their piety even blinded their eyes1 and just as the biographers of ,jesus omitted all reference to the formative years of his life1 so also the biographers of ,francis gradually eliminated the early records1 terrified at the thought that their founder may not have been a virgin4 ,we do not win any clear psychological insight into the man until we realise this4 ,it is not alone the psychological aspect which becomes clear in the light of ,francis's early life4 ,these stages of development have their ethical significance also4 ,it seems to be too often forgotten that repression and licence are two sides of the same fact4 ,we can only attain a fine temperance through a fine freedom1 even a fine excess4 ,the women who think that they must at all costs repress themselves1 and the men who--usually with the help of certain private 8accommodements0--consider repression as the proper ideal1 have missed the true safeguards against licence1 and flounder for ever in a turbid sea1 at war with themselves1 at war with nature4 ,the saints knew better4 ,by a process of spiritual ,pasteurism1 a natural and spontaneous process1 they guaranteed their eternal peace4 ,all the real saints1 so far as we know them1 had many phases1 such of them as were saints from their mothers' wombs possessing a significance which for human beings generally is minimal4 ,the real saints in all ages have forgotten so many beautiful things1 storing so many wonderful experiences in their past4 ,we should not dye our clothes1 says ,st4 ,clement of ,alexandria1 our life should now be anything but a pageant4 ,flower-like garments should be abandoned1 and ,bacchic revelries1 8useful for tragedies1 not for life40 ,the dyes of ,sardis--olive1 green1 rose-coloured1 scarlet1 and ten thousand other hues--invented for voluptuousness1 the garments of embroidered gold and purple1 dipped in perfume1 stained in saffron1 the bright diaphanous tissues of the dancing girl--to all these we must bid farewell4 ,but we cannot bid them farewell unless we have known them4 ,if you would be a saint you must begin by being something other than a saint4 ,this it was that ,st4 ,clement forgot1 or never knew4 ,in youth we are so full of energy1 and life seems so long4 ,in our ethical fervour we accept ,clement's theory of conduct at his own valuation4 ,one is so scrupulous of others1 so anxious lest he hurt them2 and another is so contemptuous of others1 so eager to hold himself back from all but the highest good1 and never to let himself fully go4 ,and there is a fine thrill of pleasure in the self-restraint1 an athletic tension of the soul4 ,it is as if the infant at the breast should say1 ,i will hold myself back from sucking2 ,i will take only just ever so little1 and not let myself go and draw in the delicious stream with no after-thought2 there will be time for that when ,i am grown up4 ,but it is not so4 ,there is only one time in life for milk1 only one time for youth2 we cannot postpone life or retrace its milestones1 and what is once lost is lost for ever4 ,the cold waters of self-restraint and self-denial1 as we first put our young feet in them1 send a tonic shiver along the nerves1 and we go on and on4 ,but suddenly we find that the water has risen to our breasts1 to our chins1 that it is too late1 too late1 that we shall never again move and breathe freely in the open air and sunshine4 ,that is the fate that overtakes the young ascetic ideal4 ,unhappier yet are those who snatch the cup of life so hastily in youth and fill it with such muddy waters that the dregs cling to their lips for ever1 spoiling the taste of the most exquisite things4 ,to live remains an art1 an art which every one must learn1 and which no one can teach4 ,it may seem that ,i speak of out-worn things1 and that the problem of saintliness has little relation to the moral problems of our time4 ,it is far otherwise4 ,you have never seen the world if you have not realised that an element of asceticism lies at the foundation of life4 ,you may expel it with the fork of reason or of self-enjoyment1 but being part of ,nature herself it must ever return4 ,all the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding in4 ,the man who makes the one or the other his exclusive aim in life will die before he has ever begun to live4 ,the man who has carried one part of the process to excess before turning to the other will indeed learn what life is1 and may leave behind him the memory of a pattern saint4 ,but he alone is the wise master of living who from first to last has held the double ideal in true honour4 ,in these1 as in other matters1 we cannot know the spiritual facts unless we realise the physical facts of life4 ,all life is a building up and a breaking down1 a taking in and a giving out1 a perpetually anabolic and katabolic rhythm4 ,to live rightly we must imitate both the luxury of ,nature and her austerity4 ,what should be the place of asceticism in modern life8 ,evidently there is in human nature an instinct which craves for the sharpening of enjoyment which comes from simplicity and a finely-tempered abstinence1 a measured drawing back when also it were possible recklessly to let go4 ,it is easy to wave aside religious asceticism4 ,that1 it seems1 may well be left to those who decide to invest their enjoyments in a heavenly bank which will pay large dividends in another world4 ,there still remains the rational asceticism that is sweet either for its own sake1 or for its immediate and visible results in human joy4 ,when we contemplate the modern world from a broadly biological standpoint1 there can be but little difficulty in finding free and wholesome scope for the ascetic instinct4 ,for the ,christian or ,buddhist ascetic of old 7as in some measure for his feeble modern imitator1 the theosophist7 asceticism was a rapturous indifference to life for the sake of something that seemed more than life1 something that was itself a 8higher life10 and only to be achieved in the treading under foot of all that men counted life4 ,such conceptions belong to the past1 and can only be revivified in the failing imaginations of the weary and the aged who belong to the past4 ,the more subtle and complex conception of life which has grown up in the modern world traces life to its roots and finds it most precious where it is most intense4 ,when we wish to carve out a world for ourselves it is the periphery which we cut away and not the core4 ,the immense accretions of that periphery in the modern world make clearer to us than it was to our predecessors that it is in the simple and elementary things that our life consists4 ,it is to the honour of ,francis that in a vague1 imperfect way he foresaw this4 ,aided by his early experiences1 he cast aside the superfluities of knowledge and labour and skill--all that vain plethora of mere formal things and prescribed acts which men foolishly count life--and symbolising them in wealth1 joyfully espoused ,poverty as a bride4 ,for poverty to ,francis meant contact with ,nature and with men4 ,the free play of the individual soul in contact with ,nature and men1 ,francis instinctively felt1 is joy and liberation2 and if the simple-minded saint went farther than this1 and allowed a certain set of dogmatic opinions and conventional abstentions1 we may be sure that herein he had no warrant of personal inspiration1 but was content to follow the well-nigh unquestioned traditions of his day4 ,francis fought1 not for ,christianity and still less for the ,church1 but for the great secret of fine living which he had personally divined4 ,it was by a true instinct that his modern biographer finds the motto of his life in the exquisite saying of the saint's great precursor1 ,joachim of ,flora1 that the true ascetic counts nothing his own1 save only his harp3 8,qui vere monachus est nihil reputat esse suum nisi citharam40 ,in former days we used to regard the civilised man as in some way incorporating in his organism and bringing into the world with him the inheritance of the ages of human culture4 ,now the tendency is to regard civilisation as a growth totally outside man1 and to consider the man himself as a savage who merely adapts himself to civilisation as he grows up1 bringing1 it may be1 his own little contribution to its development1 but himself remaining practically a savage4 ,thus ,weismann has argued that the development of music is purely a development of traditions1 and that given the traditions any savage has a chance of becoming a ,bach or a ,beethoven4 ,i think this is a more extreme view than the facts warrant us in taking4 ,but it is fairly obvious that there has been no growth of the human intellect during at least the last two or three thousand years4 ,we cannot beat the ,romans at government2 we cannot express passion better than ,sappho1 or form better than ,phidias4 ,we have produced no more truly scientific physicians than ,hippocrates or ,galen2 we cannot map out the world more philosophically than ,aristotle1 nor play at ball with it with a greater dialectical facility than ,plato4 ,what we have done is to burden ourselves with a vaster mass of tradition4 ,civilisation is the garment which man makes to clothe himself with4 ,it is for each of us to help to put in a patch here1 to sew on a button there1 or to work in more embroidery4 ,but the individual himself1 with his own personal organic passions1 never becomes part of the garment1 he only wears it4 ,not1 indeed1 that we are called upon to refuse to wear it4 ,the person who can so refuse to follow the whole tradition of the race whence he springs is organically abnormal1 not to say morbid4 ,his fellows have a fair right to call him a lunatic or a criminal4 ,the real question is whether we shall allow ourselves to be crushed to the earth1 lame1 impotent1 and anmic1 by the mere garment of civilisation1 or whether we shall so strive to live that we wear it loosely and easily and athletically1 recognising that it is infinitely less precious than the humanity it clothes1 still not without its beauty and its use4 ,if we wish to realise how many things are not required for fine living we may contemplate the 8triumphs of the ,victorian era40 ,contemplating these we are enabled also to see that they mostly belong to the mechanical side of existence1 among the things that are remote from the core of life4 ,the new energy that all these inventions may give you on one side they take from you on the other4 ,they run on the energy that you yourself supply4 ,they are but devices for burdening your progress and draining away your energy4 ,for what does it avail though tons of food are piled before you at the banquet of life if the capacity of your stomach remains strictly limited8 ,only the more exquisite quality of the banquet1 with a finer equity in its distribution1 could have brought you new joy and strength4 ,the exquisite things of life are to-day as rare and as precious as ever they were4 ,if the ,victorian era had given a keener sauce to hunger1 a more ravishing delight to love1 if it had added a new joy to the sunlight1 or a more delicious thrill to the springtime1 if it had made any of these things a larger part of the common life1 there indeed were a triumph to boast of6 ,but so far as one can see1 the ,victorian era has mostly helped to cover over and push away from men the essential joys of living4 ,even those who prate so gleefully of its triumphs find chief of these its narcotics4 ,let us use these 8triumphs0 as much as we will1 they belong to the unessential background against which the real drama of our life must still be played4 ,we waste so much of our time on the things that are not truly essential1 worrying ourselves and others4 ,only one thing is really needful1 whether with this man we say 8,seek first the kingdom of ,heaven10 or with that1 8,make to yourself a perfect body40 ,it matters little1 because he who pointed to the kingdom of ,heaven came eating and drinking1 the friend of publicans and sinners1 and he who pointed to the body sought solitude and the keenest spiritual austerity4 ,the body includes the soul1 and the kingdom of ,heaven includes the body4 ,the one thing needful is to seek wisely the fullest organic satisfaction4 ,the more closely we cling to that which satisfies the deepest cravings of the organism1 the more gladly we shall let fall the intolerable burden of restraints and licences which are not required for fine living4 8,the true ascetic counts nothing his own save only his harp40 ,it is best to feel light and elate1 free in every limb4 ,every man may have his burden to bear2 let him only beware that he bears no burden which is not a joy to carry4 ,if a man cannot sing as he carries his cross he had better drop it4 ,one has to admit that among ,english-speaking races at all events the conditions have not been favourable for fine living4 ,the racial elements that have chiefly gone to making the ,english-speaking peoples have been mainly characterised by energy1 and while energy is the prime constituent of living1 it is scarcely sufficient for fine living4 ,it is quality rather than quantity of life which finally counts3 that is the terrible fact it has taken so long for our race to learn4 ,to plough deep in the furrows of life1 to scatter human seed broadcast1 to bring to birth your random millions to wilt and fade in the black fog of ,london alleys or the hot steam of ,lancashire mills1 casting abroad the residue to wreak the vengeance in their blood on every fair and unspoilt land the world may hold--that is scarcely yet civilisation2 fishes that spawn in the deep have carried the art of living as far as that4 ,not energy1 even when it shows itself in the blind fury of righteousness1 suffices to make civilisation1 but sincerity1 intelligence1 sympathy1 grace1 and all those subtle amenities which go to what we call1 perhaps imperfectly enough1 humanity--therein more truly lie the virtues of fine living4 ,it seems not unnecessary to point out that civilisation was immortal long before the first ,englishman was born4 ,the races that have given the world the chief examples of fine living have never1 save sometimes in their decay1 sought quantity rather than quality of life4 ,some of the world's most eternal cities are its smallest cities4 ,if indeed the reckless excess of human life tended to produce happiness1 we might well recognise compensation1 and rest content4 ,but1 as we know1 that is not so4 ,the country that men call the wealthiest is the poorest in humanity when the lives and safeties of its workers are concerned1 the law of our righteousness demanding that the weakest shall go to the wall4 ,one asks oneself if such a condition of things is fatally necessary4 ,if that were so1 then indeed the outlook of the world is dark4 ,if the ideal of quantity before quality1 of brute energy1 of complacent self-righteousness1 is for ever to dominate a large part of the world through the ,english-speaking peoples1 then indeed we may die happy that the memory and the vision of better things were yet extant in our time4 ,yet surely it is not necessary4 ,if civilisation is a tradition then we may mould that tradition4 ,we are no longer fatally damned into the world4 ,if our fathers ate sour grapes our teeth are not on edge4 ,and even so far as the influence of race counts1 there is yet to be set against it the influence of climate4 ,in sunnier ,english-speaking lands we may already trace a new foreign element of grace and suavity1 a deeper insight into the art of living1 clearly due in large measure to sky alone4 ,when races change their sky1 unlike individuals1 they change their dispositions also4 ,but if we put aside this factor--though it is one of much significance when we recall the accumulating evidence that under proper conditions the white races can live and flourish in hot climes--are there no reasons for thinking that even the ,english in ,england may acquire those aptitudes which make not only for the grosser virtues of civilisation1 but also for those finer qualities which alone make life truly worth living8 ,i think there are4 ,it is common for pessimists of the baser sort to lament the relative decay of ,english supremacy in manufacturing and commercial energy1 and to look enviously at the development in these directions of other and younger lands4 ,such an attitude is in any case inhuman1 since these younger countries1 especially ,germany1 are undertaking the cruder tasks of civilisation in at once a more scientific and a more humane spirit than we have ever been able to achieve4 ,but it is also uncalled for4 ,as a civilisation declines in brutal material energy it gains in spiritual refinement1 thus winning more subtle and permanent influence4 ,egypt in her old age helped to mould young ,greece1 which in turn as she fell civilised her barbarian ,roman conquerors4 ,of early vigorous ,rome nothing remains save the empty echo of heroic virtue2 but on the magnificent compost of ,roman1 ,alexandrian1 and ,byzantine decay we northerners are flourishing even to-day4 ,france has not taken a leading part in the grosser work of modern civilisation1 but her laboratories of ideas1 her workshops of beauty1 above all her skill in the fine art of living1 have given her an influence over men's minds which swarming millions of pale factory hands and an inconceivable tonnage of mercantile shipping have not so far given to us4 ,but in the very dying down of these grosser energies there is hope1 for we may be sure that the forces of life are not yet extinct1 and that worthier and subtler ends will float before our eyes as the sculleries and outhouse offices of life are gradually removed elsewhere4 ,england1 there can be little doubt1 is peculiarly fitted to exercise the finer functions of civilisation1 if not indeed for the world generally1 at all events for those peoples of the globe which are allied to her wholly by language and largely by race4 ,in new countries1 in the hurry of cities1 in the barren solitude of plains and hills1 men have no time or no chance to elaborate the ideals and visions for which they yet thirst2 they are not in touch with those great traditions on which alone all worthy and abiding effort must finally rest4 ,the little group of islands hidden in this far corner of the ,atlantic1 bathed in their everlasting halo of iridescent mist1 will be a sacred shrine for fully half the world4 ,it was the womb in which the world's most energetic race was elaborated2 we may be sure that the mother feeling will never die out4 ,every great name and episode in the slow incubation of the race has its place and association there4 ,nothing there which is not visibly bathed in that glory which for ever touches us in the far past4 ,in the light of a newer civilisation every aspect of it will claim the picturesque beauty of the past4 ,and if1 as ,ribot has lately asserted1 the factories of this century will haunt the minds of future men with the same picturesque suggestion as the ruins of thirteenth century abbeys to-day haunt us1 how rich a treasure ,england will possess here6 ,men will come from afar to wander among the ruined factories and furnaces of ,lancashire and the ,midlands1 to gaze at the crumbling charm of those structures once mortared by tears and blood4 ,they will seek the massive whirr of vanished mills at dawn1 the prolonged clatter of clogs along the pavement1 the flutter of shawls down dark alleys1 the echo of brutal forgotten oaths4 ,their eyes will vainly try to recall the men and women of the ,victorian era1 huddled together in pathetic self-satisfaction beneath a black pall of smoke and disease and death1 playing out the tragedy they called life4 ,a tender melancholy mightier than beauty will cling to the decay of that vanished past4 ,so far we have been developing the modern applications of that spirit of simplicity--of sincere and natural asceticism--which was a chief part of the secret of the ,umbrian saint's charm4 ,francis--as in an earlier age the great ,cynics of ,greece1 and in a later age the ,new ,england transcendentalists--enables us to see that asceticism is a natural instinct2 he knew that so far from being an effort to crush the body it was an effort to give elation and freedom to the body--,gaude1 frater corpus6--and that so far from being an appeal to sorrow it was a perpetual appeal to joy4 ,let us throw aside the useless burdens of life1 he seems to say1 the things that oppress body and mind1--care and wealth and learning and books1--that thus we may become free to concentrate ourselves on the natural things of the world1 attaining therein the joy of living4 ,that was the simplicity of ,francis4 ,there is another vaguer and subtler aspect of his personality which may be expressed by the allied word purity4 ,i mean that clearness and perfect crystalline transparency symbolised by water1 in which it has its source4 ,that ,francis1 with all his fine natural instincts1 fully realised all the implications of purity1 either on its physical or its spiritual sides1 one may well doubt4 ,purity has never been a great ,christian virtue1 though ever greatly talked about in ,christendom2 and while the reliance of ,francis on instinct carried him far beyond the age and the faith in which he lived1 his indifference to the intellectual grip of things which was part of that natural instinct caused him to be often swayed by the conventions and traditions around him4 ,it has been well said that purity--which in the last analysis is physical cleanness--is the final result of evolution after which ,nature is ever striving4 ,when she had attained to the production of naked savage man1 a creature no longer encumbered with the care of his fur but freely and constantly bathed by the elements1 the perfection of purity was attained4 ,with the wearing of clothes dirt was again brought into the world2 and so-called civilised man--except when he possesses leisure for prolonged attention to his person and his clothes--is once more brought to the level of the lower animals1 indeed below them1 for few animals spend so little time and trouble in attaining cleanliness as garmented man4 ,pagan classic times1 no doubt1 cherished a cult of the body which involved a high regard for physical purity4 ,that is the very reason why such purity has never been a ,christian or modern virtue4 ,the early ,church1 feeling profound antagonism to the vices which in classic times were associated with the bath1 from the outset frequently denied that there was any need for cleanliness at all4 ,even so cultured a ,christian as ,clement of ,alexandria would only admit that women should be clean2 it was not necessary for men2 8the bath is to be taken by women for cleanliness and health1 by men for health alone20 in later days the hatred of cleanliness often became quite whole-hearted4 ,thus it happens that throughout ,europe and wherever the influence of ,christianity has spread there has been on the whole an indifference to dirt1 which is indeed not uncommonly found among degraded peoples untouched by ,christianity1 but is certainly nowhere else found in association with a grade of culture in most other matters so high4 ,to the ,roman the rites of the bath formed one of the very chief occupations of life1 and to this race it has happened1 as probably to no other ancient race1 that their baths have often survived their temples2 ,rome holds no more memorable relic than the ,baths of ,caracalla4 ,for the ,mohammedan the love of water is part of religion1 and the energy and skill with which in its prime ,islamic civilisation exploited the free and beautiful use of water1 are still to be traced throughout southern ,spain4 ,in the fine civilisation of ,japan1 again1 the pursuit of physical purity has ever been a simple and unashamed public duty1 and 8a ,japanese crowd10 says ,professor ,chamberlain1 8is the sweetest in the world40 ,how different things are in ,christendom one need not insist4 ,it is1 however1 impossible to overrate the magnitude of the issues which are directly and indirectly enfolded in this question of physical purity4 ,christianity1 with its studied indifference to cleanliness1 is1 after all1 a force from the outside so far as we are concerned2 every spontaneous reflective movement of progress involves a reaction against it4 ,on the physical side it is the mark of the better social classes that they are clean1 and any striving for betterment among the masses is on the physical side a striving for greater cleanliness4 ,personal dirtiness is the real and permanent dividing line of classes4 ,the instinctive physical shrinking of the clean person from the dirty person--except at the rare moments when some stronger emotion comes into play--is profound and inevitable4 ,nearly every form of honest natural vulgarity it is possible to find tolerable and sometimes even charming1 but personal physical unwholesomeness remains an impossible barrier4 ,there is no social equality between the clean and the dirty4 ,the question of physical purity lies at the root of the real democratic problem4 ,our attitude towards physical purity inevitably determines our attitude towards the body generally4 ,without the ideal of cleanliness the body becomes impure4 ,it cannot be shown4 ,complete concealment becomes the ideal of the impure4 ,and however pure and excellent the body may actually be among ourselves1 the traditions of the past remain4 ,the ,greeks considered the dislike to nakedness as a mark of ,persian and other barbarians2 the ,japanese--the ,greeks of another age and clime--had not conceived the reasons for avoiding nakedness until taught by the lustful and shame-faced eyes of western barbarians4 ,among ourselves it is 8disgusting0 even to-day to show so much as the foot4#aj ,we certainly could not imitate ,st4 ,francis1 who broke with his old life by abandoning his father's house and all that he owned1 absolutely naked4 ,there is no real line of demarcation between physical purity and spiritual purity1 and the spiritual impurity which marks our civilisation is certainly related to the physical impurity which has so long been a tradition of ,christendom4 ,both alike are a consciousness of uncleanness involving a cloak of hypocrisy4 ,we may well recall that sincerity1 if we carry its history sufficiently far back1 is one with physical purity4 ,in some districts of ,italy a girl shows that she is chaste by joining in a certain procession and bearing the symbols of purity in her hand4 ,at all events so it was once4 ,all women now walk in the procession of the chaste4 ,in civilised modern life everywhere1 indeed1 we all walk in that procession1 and bright lustful eyes mingled with faint starved eyes both look out incongruously from behind the same monotonously chaste masks4 ,we have forgotten1 if we ever knew1 that the filthy rags of our righteousness have alike robbed desire of its purity and restraint of its beauty4 ,how far ,francis had instinctively divined the meaning and significance of purity1 either on the physical or the moral side1 it would be idle to attempt to inquire too precisely4 ,but this delicate and admirable saint brings us into an atmosphere in which the true grace of purity may at least be discerned4 ,his indifference to nakedness1 his affection for animals and interest in their loves1 his audacious banding together of men and women in one order1 his gospel of joy and his everlasting delight in all natural and elementary things1 make up a whole inconceivably different from that vision of the world which the great medival monks1 from ,st4 ,bernard downwards1 spent their lives in maintaining4 ,he brings us to a point at which we are enabled to go beyond his own insight1 a point at which we may not only see that asceticism is a simple and natural instinct1 not alone recognise the beauty of sex in flowers and birds1 but in human creatures also1 and learn at last that the finest secrets of purity are known only to the man and woman who have mingled the scent of their sweat with the wild thyme4 ,at the present moment it may indeed be said that the purity which is one with sincerity presents itself to us more broadly and more clearly in the road of our evolution than it ever has before4 ,even on the physical side secrecy is becoming impossible1 and as the progress of physical science makes matter more and more transparent to our eyes1 sincerity must ever become a more stringent and inevitable virtue4 ,and on the psychic side1 also1 purity--if you will1 sincerity--is even more surely imposing itself4 ,within our own time we have been privileged to see psychology taken from the study into the laboratory and into the market-place4 ,there is no recess of the soul--however intimate1 however1 as we have been taught to think1 disgusting--that is not now opened to the childlike1 all-scrutinising curiosity of science4 ,we may perhaps rebel1 but so it is4 ,there are no mysteries left1 no noisome abysses of ignorance veiled by the pretty mists of innocence4 ,in the face of this tendency private vice must ever become more difficult2 we are learning to detect the whole man in the slightest quiver of his muscles4 ,thus1 again1 purity becomes yet more stringent and inevitable4 ,we gaze at all facts now1 and find none too mean or too sacred for study4 ,but it is fatal to gaze at certain facts if you cannot gaze purely4 ,in that lies the final triumph of purity4 ,we may rebel1 ,i repeat1 but so it is1 so it must remain4 ,i do not wish to insist here on the moral aspects of purity--grave and profound as these are--for ,i am dealing less with the social aspects of simplicity and purity than with what ,i would call their religious aspects1 their power to win our personal peace and joy4 ,how far we are to-day1 at all events in ,england1 from the simplicity and purity of ,francis in the search for peace and joy is brought home very clearly to those who have ever made it their business to observe the masses of our population in their finest moments of would-be peace and joy4 ,many years ago a curious fascination drew me every ,bank ,holiday to haunt the structure and grounds of the ,crystal ,palace1 near which ,i then lived4 ,the vision of humanity in the mass1 when it has lost the interest which individuals possess1 and taken on the more abstract interest belonging to the species1 has for me at least always had a certain attraction4 ,but these ,bank ,holiday crowds had a more special interest4 ,they summed up and wrote large the characteristics of a nation4 ,these thirty thousand persons belonging to the class which by virtue of greater fertility furnishes the ultimate substance of all classes1 seemed to reveal to me the heart of my own people4 ,the perpetual1 violent movement1 the meaningless shouts and yells1 the haggard bands of young women standing in the corridors to tramp wearily a treadmill variation of the ,irish jig until they fell into an almost hypnotic state1 the wistful1 weary looks in the dull eyes of these seekers1 rushing on among the plaster images of old serene gods1 seeing nothing but always moving1 moving they knew not whither1 faint1 yet pursuing they knew not what1--the whole of the northern soul1 the ,english soul above all1 was there4 ,on6 on6 never mind how or where3 that seemed the perpetual cry of these pale1 lean1 awkward youths and women4 ,and ,i would think of the bands of boys and girls in the medival crusading epidemics1 starting from the north with the same eyes1 asking for ,jerusalem at every town1 soon to be slain or drowned in unknown obscure ways4 ,or sometimes ,i recalled the bas-reliefs in the museum at ,naples--that most fascinating of museums--which show how the failing ,greek genius concentrated its now spiritualised energy in the forms of ,dionysus and his mnads4 ,with eager face grown languid he leans on the great thyrsus1 which bends beneath his weight1 and in front his mnads1 upheld by the ardour of the search1 with heads thrown back and flying hair1 still beat their cymbals desperately1 seeking1 until they have grown almost unconscious of search1 a far-away joy1 an ever-fleeting ideal1 of which they have at last forgotten the name4 ,and so for hours my gaze would be fixed on the pathetic vulgarity of those terrible crowds4 ,of late ,i have been able to see how the other vigorous and reproductive race--the race that chiefly shares with ,england the partition of the uncivilised world--comports itself at its great festivals4 ,the ,russians are a profoundly and consciously religious race1 and ,i recall above all the unforgettable scene at the ancient monastery of ,troitsa1 near ,moscow1 as it appeared on the festival of the ,assumption1 when pilgrims1 women mostly1 in every variety of gay costume1 crowded thither on foot from all parts of ,russia4 ,there1 at length within the walls of that monastery-fortress on the hill at ,sergievo1 they fervently kiss the sacred relics1 and having been served by the dark-robed1 long-haired monks with soup and black bread1 they lie down and fall asleep1 placid and motionless1 on all sides4 ,young women1 grasping the pilgrim's staff1 a little droop sometimes in the lips1 yet with large brawny thighs beneath the short skirts1 stolid great-breasted women of middle age1 wrinkled old women decked in their ancient traditional adornments--all this gay-coloured multitude fling themselves down to sleep on the church steps1 around its walls1 over the silent graves1 heaped up anywhere that the march of on-coming pilgrims leaves a little space1 tired mnads filled for once with the wine their souls craved1 colossal images of immense appeasement4 ,it is the orgy of a strong1 silent1 much-suffering race1 with all the charm of childhood yet upon it1 too humane to be ferocious in its energy4 ,we ,english subordinate the sensory to the motor side of life1 and even find our virtue in so doing4 ,to live in the present1 to suffer and to enjoy our actual evil and good1 facing it squarely and making our account with it--that we cannot do3 that was the way of the ,greeks and ,romans2 it is not our way4 ,we are ever poets and idealists1 down to the dregs of life's cup4 ,we must strive and push1 using our muscles to narcotise our senses1 ever contemptuous of the people who more fully exercise their senses to grasp the world around them4 ,for the sake of this muscular auto-intoxication we miss the finest moments life has to give4 ,the ,japanese masses1 who fix their popular festival for the day when the cherry-tree is in finest bloom1 and take their families into the woods to sip tea and pass the day deliciously with the flowers1 are born to a knowledge of that mystery which ,francis painfully conquered4 ,the people to whom such an art of enjoyment is the common practice of the common people may possibly not succeed in sending ugly and shoddy goods to clothe and kill the beautiful skins of every savage tribe under heaven1 but we need not fear to affirm that they have learnt secrets of civilisation which are yet hidden from us in ,england4 ,the worth of a civilisation1 we may be very sure1 is more surely measured by its power to multiply among the common people the possibility of having and enjoying such moments than by the mileage of cotton goods its factories can yield1 or even by the output of ,bibles its weary factory hands can stitch4 ,we can know no moments of finer or purer exhilaration1 whether we breathe the bright air of ,australian solitudes and watch the virgin hills lie fold within fold beneath the stainless sunlight1 or in the dimmer and damper air of this old country recline on ,surrey heights by the great beeches of the old deserted ,pilgrim's ,way and meditate of the past4 ,there are few things sweeter or more profitable than to lie on the velvety floor of a little pine wood on a forgotten southern height in ,may1 where tall clumps of full-flowered rhododendra blend with the fragrant gorse which spreads down to the sparkling sea1 and to throw aside everything and dream4 ,in such moments at such spots we reach the summits of life1 learning those secrets of asceticism which ,francis knew so well4 ,thus by his words and by his deeds ,francis still has his significance for us4 ,he brought asceticism from the cell into the fields1 and became the monk of ,nature4 ,one may doubt whether1 as ,renan thought1 the ,song to the ,sun is the supreme modern expression of the religious spirit1 but without doubt it gathers up vaguely and broadly the things that most surely belong to our eternal peace in this world4 ,that it is the simplest and naturalest things to which eternal joy belongs is the divine secret which makes ,francis a prince among saints1 and it was by a true inspiration that he dedicated the chief utterance of his worship of joy in life to the sun4 ,if it should ever chance that a sane instinct of worship is born again on earth among civilised men1 let us be sure that nothing will seem more worthy of worship than the sun1 the source of that energy out of which we and all our ideals ultimately spring4 ,some day1 again1 perhaps1 men will greet the rising of the sun at the summer solstice on the hills with music and song and dance1 framing their most exquisite liturgical art to the honour of that supreme source of all earthly life4 ,it was natural1 doubtless1 that at some stage of human progress new-found moral conceptions should intrude themselves as worthier of human worship4 ,but even the cross itself--if not its great rival the lunar ,mohammedan crescent--was first the symbol of sun-worship1 of the source of life4 ,we may yet rescue that sacred symbol1 now fallen to such sorrowful uses1 bearing it onwards to sunnier heights of wholeness and joy4 ,religions are many1 and in the mass they seem to us--blinded to the social functions that religions originally subserved--endlessly harsh and cruel4 ,but in their summits1 in their finest personalities1 they are simple and natural enough1 and alike lovely4 ,look at the ,jesus of the ,gospels1 the friend of publicans and sinners1 the marriage guest at ,cana1 so tender-hearted in the house of ,simon1 the author of those sayings of quintessential natural wisdom preserved to us in that string of adorable pearls men call the ,sermon on the ,mount4 ,look at the prophet of ,islam1 when gazing back at the earth as it seemed to recede into the distance at the end of his long career1 he counted as first among its claims the simple natural joys3 8,i love your world because of its women and its perfumes40 ,and we remember the depths to which ,christianity and ,mohammedanism have alike fallen4 ,look1 again1 at ,francis1 who in no prim academical sense may be called the first modern apostle of sweetness and light1 a man who found joy unspeakable in inhaling the fragrance of flowers1 in watching the limpid waters of mountain streams1 and whose most characteristic symbol is the soaring lark he loved so well4 ,and we remember that a century later even ,chaucer1 that sweetest and most sympathetic of poets1 can only speak of his friar in words that seem to be of inevitable and unconscious irony4 ,for every religion begins as the glorious living flame of a lovely human personality1--or so it seems1--and continues as a barren cinder-heap4 ,as such1 as a ,church1 whether pagan or ,christian1 it can scarcely afford us either light or heat4 ,why1 one asks oneself1 is it necessary for me to choose between ,paul and ,petronius8 ,why pester me on the one hand with the breastplate of faith and the helmet of salvation1 on the other with the feast of ,trimalchio and the kisses of ,giton8 8,a plague of both your houses60 ,we are not barbarians1 tortured by a moral law1 neither are we all pagans with unmixed instincts of luxury4 ,we are the outcome of a civilisation in which not only has what we are pleased to regard as the sensual fury of the ape and tiger become somewhat chastened1 but the ascetic fury of the monk and priest also4 ,let the child of the south feast still in the house of ,trimalchio with unwounded conscience1 if he can2 we will not forbid him4 ,and let the barbarian still flagellate his tense rebellious nerves with knotted spiritual scourges1 if only so can he draw out the best music they yield2 we will be the first to applaud4 ,but most of us have little to do with the one or the other4 ,the palmiest days of both ended a thousand years ere we were born4 ,before the threshold of our modern world was reached ,francis sang in the sun and smiled away the spectres that squatted on the beautiful things of the earth4 ,on the threshold of our world ,rabelais built his ,abbey of ,thelme1 in whose rule was but one clause1 ,fay ce que vouldras1 a rule which no pagan or ,christian had ever set up before1 because never before except as involved in the abstract conceptions of philosophers1 had the thought of voluntary co-operation1 of the unsolicited freedom to do well1 appeared before ,european men4 ,what have we to do also1 it may be added1 with modernity1 with the fashions of an hour8 ,it is well1 indeed1 to live in the present1 whatever that present may be1 but sooner or later we are pushed back1 weary or disillusioned1 on the inspiration of our own personality4 ,all the activity of ,francis only wrought a plague of grey friars1 scattered like dust on the highways of ,europe4 ,but ,francis still remains1 and all things wither into nothingness in the presence of one natural man who dared to be himself4 ,the best of us can scarcely hope to be more successful than ,francis4 ,but at least we may be ourselves4 8,whatever happens ,i must be emerald30 that1 ,antoninus said1 is the emerald's morality2 that must remain our finest affirmation4 ,our feet cling to the earth1 and it is well that we should learn to grip it closely and nakedly4 ,but the earth beneath us is not all of ,nature2 there are instincts within us that lead elsewhere1 and it is part of the art of living to use naturally all those instincts4 ,in so doing the spiritual burdens which the ages have laid upon us glide away into thin air4 ,and for us1 as for him who wrote ,de ,imitatione ,christi--however far differently--there are still two wings by which we may raise ourselves above the earth1 simplicity1 that is to say1 and purity4 ,,footnotes3 ,footnote #aj3 ,thus one learns from the newspapers that the offence of wearing sandals has involved ejection even from so great a centre of enlightenment as the ,reading ,room of the ,british ,museum1 while the mere assertion that an actress appeared on the stage with bare legs was so damaging that it involved an action for slander1 a public apology1 and the payment of 8a substantial sum0 in compensation4 ,,the ,,walter ,,scott ,,press1 ,,newcastle-,,on-,,tyne4 ,crown #hvo1 about #cej pp4 each1 ,cloth ,cover1 #b_/f per ,vol42 ,half-,polished ,morocco1 ,gilt ,top1 #es4 ,count ,tolstoy's ,works4 ,the following ,volumes are already issued-- ,a ,,russian ,,proprietor4 ,,what ,,to ,,do8 ,,the ,,cossacks4 ,,war ,,and ,,peace4 7#d vols47 ,,ivan ,,ilyich1 ,,and ,,other ,,the ,,long ,,exile1 ,,etc4 ,,stories4 ,,sevastopol4 ,,my ,,religion4 ,,the ,,kreutzer ,,sonata1 ,,and ,,life4 ,,family ,,happiness4 ,,my ,,confession4 ,,the ,,kingdom ,,of ,,god ,,is ,,childhood1 ,,boyhood1 ,,within ,,you4 ,,youth4 ,,work ,,while ,,ye ,,have ,,the ,,the ,,physiology ,,of ,,war4 ,,light4 ,,anna ,,karenina4 #c_/f4 ,,the ,,gospel ,,in ,,brief4 ,uniform with the above-- ,,impressions ,,of ,,russia4 ,by ,dr4 ,,george ,,brandes4 ,post #dto1 ,cloth1 ,price #as4 ,,patriotism ,,and ,,christianity4 ,to which is appended a ,reply to ,criticisms of the ,work4 ,by ,,count ,,tolstoy4 #a_/- ,booklets by ,count ,tolstoy4 ,bound in ,white ,grained ,boards1 with ,gilt ,lettering4 ,,where ,,love ,,is1 ,,there ,,god ,,the ,,godson4 ,,is ,,also4 ,,if ,,you ,,neglect ,,the ,,fire1 ,,the ,,two ,,pilgrims4 ,,you ,,don',t ,,put ,,it ,,out4 ,,what ,,men ,,live ,,by4 ,,what ,,shall ,,it ,,profit ,a ,,man8 #b_/- ,booklets by ,count ,tolstoy4 ,,new ,,editions1 ,,revised4 ,small #abmo1 ,cloth1 with ,embossed ,design on ,cover1 each containing ,two ,stories by ,count ,tolstoy1 and ,two ,drawings by ,h4 ,r4 ,millar4 ,in ,box1 ,price #bs4 each4 ,volume ,i4 contains-- ,volume ,,iii4 contains-- ,,where ,,love ,,is1 ,,there ,,god ,,the ,,two ,,pilgrims4 ,,is ,,also4 ,,if ,,you ,,neglect ,,the ,,fire1 ,,the ,,godson4 ,,you ,,don',t ,,put ,,it ,,out4 ,volume ,,ii4 contains-- ,volume ,,iv4 contains-- ,,what ,,men ,,live ,,by4 ,,master ,,and ,,man4 ,,what ,,shall ,,it ,,profit ,a ,volume ,v4 contains-- ,,man8 ,,tolstoy',s ,,parables4 ,london3 ,,walter ,,scott1 ,,limited1 ,paternoster ,square4 ,,press ,,opinions ,,on 8,,the ,,new ,,spirit40 8,it is easy to dislike his book1 it is possible to dislike it furiously2 but the book is so honest1 so earnest1 so stimulating in its tolerant but convinced unconventionality1 that it claims for itself a like sincerity and seriousness in the reader4444 ,mr4 ,ellis has produced a book which will be hotly discussed1 no doubt1 for it is nothing if not initiative1 we might almost say revolutionary2 but it is not a book to be disregarded4444 ,it has sincerity and it has power2 and sincerity and power compel at least attention40--,speaker4 8,mr4 ,havelock ,ellis has discovered a #8,new ,spirit4' ,we have read him with care and patience1 and we should be sorry to describe it2 we only know that it is not intoxicating40--,scots ,observer4 8,welcome is warmly due to this fresh1 buoyant1 and sincere volume of essays by ,mr4 ,havelock ,ellis4444 ,there are parts of the study of ,heine which are not unworthy to be named--it is high praise--with ,matthew ,arnold's inimitable paper upon that writer1 a paper almost as classic as ,heine himself4444 ,the last word upon so suggestive and finished a piece of work ought to be one of ungrudging praise40--,academy4 8,mr4 ,carlyle described1 it seems to us1 ,mr4 ,havelock ,ellis himself with great exactness in the person of a certain biographer of ,voltaire1 #8an inquiring1 honest-hearted character1 many of whose statements must have begun to astonish even himself4' ,mr4 ,ellis must be very #8inquiring1' for we have seldom met with one who knows so many things that other people do not know40--,athenum4 8,each of these essays is a thorough and well-considered piece of work1 admirable in information1 firm in grasp1 stimulating in style1 appreciative in matter1 and the survey afforded is broad4444 ,it is an altogether unusual work1 both for its ambition and for its matter2 it brings the reader near to some of the marked ideas of the time40--,nation4 8,the points of the ,new ,spirit are its passion for getting things right in the matter of property and in the matter of true human worth40--,daily ,news4 ,,press ,,opinions ,,on 8,,the ,,new ,,spirit40 7,continued47 8,the only coherent constituent of the ,new ,spirit which this book professes to set forth1 is a vehement hatred1 amounting to a passion1 against conventional unveracities1 and a determination that they should be swept away4444 ,we cannot imagine anything of which it could be more necessary for human nature1 so taught by our ,lord1 to purge itself1 than the ,new ,spirit of ,havelock ,ellis40--,spectator4 8,mr4 ,havelock ,ellis has written an interesting and significant book1 which it is quite easy to ridicule1 but which certainly deserves a fair hearing4444 ,apparently these writers are chosen because they all agree in a hatred of shams1 in looking facts in the face1 and in demanding provision for the healthy satisfaction of animal wants4444 ,mr4 ,ellis writes with force and insight2 but1 whether from brevity or want of caution1 he leaves with regard to these subjects an impression which he would probably not himself desire to produce40--,murray's ,magazine4 8,the concluding chapter1 wherein ,mr4 ,ellis expresses his own #8intimate thought and secret emotion1' is one of the best utterances of the ,new ,spirit which we have ever read40--,echo4 8,un volume de haute critique littraire qui rappelle le style fort et la mthode stricte de ,hennequin40--,mercure de ,france4 8,a more foolish1 unwholesome1 perverted piece of sentimental cant we have never wasted our time over40--,world4 8,excellent examples of appreciative criticism of an exceedingly interesting series of authors1 of whom every one ought to know at least as much as ,mr4 ,ellis here tells us so freshly and vivaciously40--,scottish ,leader4 8,we only refer to this unpleasant compilation of cool impudence and effrontery to warn our readers against it40--,dundee ,advertiser4 8,beautiful both in thought and expression4 ,but ,mr4 ,ellis seems to have laid aside altogether the wise restraint which characterises his volume on #8,the ,criminal4'444 ,the scientific spirit1 of which at other times he has shown himself a distinguished exponent1 should have prevented him from such error40--,arbroath ,herald4 8,ardent1 enthusiastic1 and eloquent40--,boston ,literary ,world4 8,it is not often that the weary and heart-sore reviewer1 struggling to keep abreast of the ,protean outpourings of the press1 falls in with anything so well-informed1 so rich in thought and suggestion as ,the ,new ,spirit40--,wit and ,wisdom4 ,london3 ,,walter ,,scott1 ,,limited1 ,paternoster ,square4 ,the ,contemporary ,science ,series4 ,edited by ,havelock ,ellis4 ,i4 ,,the ,,evolution ,,of ,,sex4 ,by ,prof4 ,,patrick ,,geddes and ,j4 ,a4 ,,thomson4 ,with #ij ,illustrations4 ,second ,edition4 8,the authors have brought to the task--as indeed their names guarantee--a wealth of knowledge1 a lucid and attractive method of treatment1 and a rich vein of picturesque language40--,nature4 ,,ii4 ,,electricity ,,in ,,modern ,,life4 ,by ,g4 ,w4 ,,de ,,tunzelmann4 ,with #hh ,illustrations4 8,a clearly-written and connected sketch of what is known about electricity and magnetism1 the more prominent modern applications1 and the principles on which they are based40--,saturday ,review4 ,,iii4 ,,the ,,origin ,,of ,,the ,,aryans4 ,by ,dr4 ,,isaac ,,taylor4 ,illustrated4 ,second ,edition4 8,canon ,taylor is probably the most encyclopdic all-round scholar now living4 ,his new volume on the ,origin of the ,aryans is a first-rate example of the excellent account to which he can turn his exceptionally wide and varied information4444 ,masterly and exhaustive40--,pall ,mall ,gazette4 ,,iv4 ,,physiognomy ,,and ,,expression4 ,by ,p4 ,,mantegazza4 ,illustrated4 8,brings this highly interesting subject even with the latest researches4444 ,professor ,mantegazza is a writer full of life and spirit1 and the natural attractiveness of his subject is not destroyed by his scientific handling of it40--,literary ,world 7,boston74 ,v4 ,,evolution ,,and ,,disease4 ,by ,j4 ,b4 ,,sutton1 ,f4,r4,c4,s4 ,with #ace ,illustrations4 8,the book is as interesting as a novel1 without sacrifice of accuracy or system1 and is calculated to give an appreciation of the fundamentals of pathology to the lay reader1 while forming a useful collection of illustrations of disease for medical reference40--,journal of ,mental ,science4 ,,vi4 ,,the ,,village ,,community4 ,by ,g4 ,l4 ,,gomme4 ,illustrated4 8,his book will probably remain for some time the best work of reference for facts bearing on those traces of the village community which have not been effaced by conquest1 encroachment1 and the heavy hand of ,roman law40--,scottish ,leader4 ,,vii4 ,,the ,,criminal4 ,by ,,havelock ,,ellis4 ,illustrated4 ,second ,edition4 8,the sociologist1 the philosopher1 the philanthropist1 the novelist--all1 indeed1 for whom the study of human nature has any attraction--will find ,mr4 ,ellis full of interest and suggestiveness40--,academy4 ,,viii4 ,,sanity ,,and ,,insanity4 ,by ,dr4 ,,charles ,,mercier4 ,illustrated4 8,taken as a whole1 it is the brightest book on the physical side of mental science published in our time40--,pall ,mall ,gazette4 ,,ix4 ,,hypnotism4 ,by ,dr4 ,,albert ,,moll4 ,fourth ,edition4 8,marks a step of some importance in the study of some difficult physiological and psychological problems which have not yet received much attention in the scientific world of ,england40--,nature4 ,x4 ,,manual ,,training4 ,by ,dr4 ,c4 ,m4 ,,woodward1 ,director of the ,manual ,training ,school1 ,st4 ,louis4 ,illustrated4 8,there is no greater authority on the subject than ,professor ,woodward40--,manchester ,guardian4 ,,xi4 ,,the ,,science ,,of ,,fairy ,,tales4 ,by ,e4 ,,sidney ,,hartland4 8,mr4 ,hartland's book will win the sympathy of all earnest students1 both by the knowledge it displays1 and by a thorough love and appreciation of his subject1 which is evident throughout40--,spectator4 ,,xii4 ,,primitive ,,folk4 ,by ,,elie ,,reclus4 8,an attractive and useful introduction to the study of some aspects of ethnography40--,nature4 ,,xiii4 ,,the ,,evolution ,,of ,,marriage4 ,by ,professor ,,letourneau4 8,among the distinguished ,french students of sociology1 ,professor ,letourneau has long stood in the first rank4 ,he approaches the great study of man free from bias and shy of generalisations4 ,to collect1 scrutinise1 and appraise facts is his chief business4 ,in the volume before us he shows these qualities in an admirable degree40--,science4 ,,xiv4 ,,bacteria ,,and ,,their ,,products4 ,by ,dr4 ,g4 ,,sims ,,woodhead4 ,illustrated4 ,second ,edition4 8,an excellent summary of the present state of knowledge of the subject40--,lancet4 ,,xv4 ,,education ,,and ,,heredity4 ,by ,j4 ,m4 ,,guyau4 8,it is at once a treatise on sociology1 ethics1 and pdagogics4 ,it is doubtful whether among all the ardent evolutionists who have had their say on the moral and the educational question any one has carried forward the new doctrine so boldly to its extreme logical consequence40--,professor ,,sully in ,mind4 ,,xvi4 ,,the ,,man ,,of ,,genius4 ,by ,prof4 ,,lombroso4 ,illustrated4 8,by far the most comprehensive and fascinating collection of facts and generalizations concerning genius which has yet been brought together40--,journal of ,mental ,science4 ,,xvii4 ,,the ,,grammar ,,of ,,science4 ,by ,prof4 ,,karl ,,pearson4 ,illustrated4 8,the problems discussed with great ability and lucidity1 and often in a most suggestive manner1 by ,prof4 ,pearson1 are such as should interest all students of natural science40--,natural ,science4 ,,xviii4 ,,property3 ,,its ,,origin ,,and ,,development4 ,by ,,ch4 ,,letourneau1 ,general ,secretary to the ,anthropological ,society1 ,paris1 and ,professor in the ,school of ,anthropology1 ,paris4 8,m4 ,letourneau has read a great deal1 and he seems to us to have selected and interpreted his facts with considerable judgment and learning40--,westminster ,review4 ,,xix4 ,,volcanoes1 ,,past ,,and ,,present4 ,by ,prof4 ,,edward ,,hull1 ,l4,l4,d41 ,f4,r4,s4 8,a very readable account of the phenomena of volcanoes and earthquakes40--,nature4 ,,xx4 ,,public ,,health4 ,by ,dr4 ,j4 ,f4 ,j4 ,,sykes4 ,with numerous ,illustrations4 8,not by any means a mere compilation or a dry record of details and statistics1 but it takes up essential points in evolution1 environment1 prophylaxis1 and sanitation bearing upon the preservation of public health40--,lancet4 ,,xxi4 ,,modern ,,meteorology4 ,,an ,,account ,,of ,,the ,,growth ,,and ,,present ,,condition ,,of ,,some ,,branches ,,of ,,meteorological ,,science4 ,by ,,frank ,,waldo1 ,,ph4,d41 ,member of the ,german and ,austrian ,meteorological ,societies1 etc42 late ,junior ,professor1 ,signal ,service1 ,u4,s4,a4 ,with #aab ,illustrations4 8,the present volume is the best on the subject for general use that we have seen40--,daily ,telegraph 7,london74 ,,xxii4 ,,the ,,germ-,,plasm3 ,a ,,theory ,,of ,,heredity4 ,by ,,august ,,weismann1 ,professor in the ,university of ,freiburg-in-,breisgau4 ,with #bd ,illustrations4 8,there has been no work published since ,darwin's own books which has so thoroughly handled the matter treated by him1 or has done so much to place in order and clearness the immense complexity of the factors of heredity1 or1 lastly1 has brought to light so many new facts and considerations bearing on the subject40--,british ,medical ,journal4 ,,xxiii4 ,,industries ,,of ,,animals4 ,by ,f4 ,,houssay4 ,with numerous ,illustrations4 8,his accuracy is undoubted1 yet his facts out-marvel all romance4 ,these facts are here made use of as materials wherewith to form the mighty fabric of evolution40--,manchester ,guardian4 ,,xxiv4 ,,man ,,and ,,woman4 ,by ,,havelock ,,ellis4 ,illustrated4 ,second ,edition4 8,mr4 ,havelock ,ellis belongs1 in some measure1 to the continental school of anthropologists2 but while equally methodical in the collection of facts1 he is far more cautious in the invention of theories1 and he has the further distinction of being not only able to think1 but able to write4 ,his book is a sane and impartial consideration1 from a psychological and anthropological point of view1 of a subject which is certainly of primary interest40--,athenum4 ,,xxv4 ,,the ,,evolution ,,of ,,modern ,,capitalism4 ,by ,,john ,a4 ,,hobson1 ,m4,a4 8,every page affords evidence of wide and minute study1 a weighing of facts as conscientious as it is acute1 a keen sense of the importance of certain points as to which economists of all schools have hitherto been confused and careless1 and an impartiality generally so great as to give no indication of his ,mr4 ,hobson's personal sympathies40--,pall ,mall ,gazette4 ,,xxvi4 ,,apparitions ,,and ,,thought-,,transference4 ,by ,,frank ,,podmore1 ,m4,a4 8,a very sober and interesting little book4444 ,that thought-transference is a real thing1 though not perhaps a very common thing1 he certainly shows40--,spectator4 ,,xxvii4 ,,an ,,introduction ,,to ,,comparative ,,psychology4 ,by ,professor ,c4 ,,lloyd ,,morgan4 ,with ,diagrams4 8,a strong and complete exposition of ,psychology1 as it takes shape in a mind previously informed with biological science4444 ,well written1 extremely entertaining1 and intrinsically valuable40--,saturday ,review4 ,,xxviii4 ,,the ,,origins ,,of ,,invention3 ,a ,,study ,,of ,,industry ,,among ,,primitive ,,peoples4 ,by ,,otis ,t4 ,,mason1 ,curator of the ,department of ,ethnology in the ,united ,states ,national ,museum4 8,a valuable history of the development of the inventive faculty40--,nature4 ,,xxix4 ,,the ,,growth ,,of ,,the ,,brain3 ,a ,,study ,,of ,,the ,,nervous ,,system ,,in ,,relation ,,to ,,education4 ,by ,,henry ,,herbert ,,donaldson1 ,professor of ,neurology in the ,university of ,chicago4 8,we can say with confidence that ,professor ,donaldson has executed his work with much care1 judgment1 and discrimination40--,the ,lancet4 ,,xxx4 ,,evolution ,,in ,,art3 ,,as ,,illustrated ,,by ,,the ,,life-,,histories ,,of ,,designs4 ,by ,professor ,,alfred ,c4 ,,haddon4 ,with #acj ,illustrations4 8,it is impossible to speak too highly of this most unassuming and invaluable book40--,journal ,anthropological ,institute4 ,,xxxi4 ,,the ,,psychology ,,of ,,the ,,emotions4 ,by ,,th4 ,,ribot1 ,professor at the ,college of ,france1 ,editor of the ,revue ,philosophique4 8,professor ,ribot's treatment is careful1 modern1 and adequate40--,academy4 ,,xxxii4 ,,hallucinations ,,and ,,illusions3 ,a ,,study ,,of ,,the ,,fallacies ,,of ,,perception4 ,by ,,edmund ,,parish4 8,this remarkable little volume40--,daily ,news4 ,,xxxiii4 ,,the ,,new ,,psychology4 ,by ,e4 ,w4 ,,scripture1 ,ph4,d4 7,leipzig74 ,with #abd ,illustrations4 ,,xxxiv4 ,,sleep3 ,,its ,,physiology1 ,,pathology1 ,,hygiene1 ,,and ,,psychology4 ,by ,,marie ,,de ,,manac,,ne 7,st4 ,petersburg74 ,illustrated4 ,,the ,,scott ,,library4 ,crown #hvo1 ,cloth ,elegant1 ,price #as4 #f;d4 per ,volume4 ,,issue ,,of ,,new ,,volumes4 ,vasari's ,lives of ,italian ,painters4 ,selected and ,prefaced by ,,havelock ,,ellis4 8,vasari's ,lives0 may be approached for such knowledge as they afford concerning the history of art and the cataloguing of the art-products of the ,italian ,renaissance2 or they may be approached for the light ,vasari throws on the psychology of genius in artists1 from which point of view he is incomparable4 ,as the personal friend or acquaintance of some of the world's greatest artists1 ,vasari moved in an atmosphere of artistic tradition1 which he has fully recorded4 ,in this volume the editor has sought to gather from the voluminous ,lives everything that is really of value regarding the intimate nature and habits of the great ,florentine artists of the ,italian ,renaissance4 ,laocoon2 and other ,prose ,writings of ,lessing4 ,a ,new ,translation1 with an ,introduction1 by ,w4 ,b4 ,r,,nnfeldt4 ,this volume1 representative of the prose of ,lessing1 contains1 besides the ,laocoon essay1 those portions of ,lessing's ,dramatic ,notes 7,hamburgische ,dramaturgie7 which deal with various principles of dramatic art1 and which are of permanent interest1 together with the ,education of the ,human ,race1 ,lessing's last contribution to theological discussion4 ,a biographical note is prefixed to the introduction4 ,an entirely new translation is here given4 ,pelleas and ,melisanda and ,the ,sightless4 ,two ,plays by ,maurice ,maeterlinck4 ,translated from the ,french by ,,laurence ,,alma ,,tadema4 ,the preface to this volume1 while providing for the reader who is unacquainted with the peculiarly imaginative dramas of ,maeterlinck an excellent introduction to them1 furnishes also a bibliography of ,maeterlinck's works4 ,for the song in ,act ,,iii4 of ,pelleas and ,melisanda 78,mes longs cheveux descendent071 the attempt at an adequate ,english rendition of which has baffled various translators1 another song has1 at the request of ,m4 ,maeterlinck1 been substituted4 ,the ,complete ,angler of ,walton and ,cotton4 ,edited1 with an ,introduction1 by ,,charles ,,hill ,,dick4 ,this is a carefully edited reprint of this famous book1 prefixed by a biographical introduction4 ,pains has been taken in the selection of the type for this edition1 which will be found one of the neatest and handiest of the many editions of ,the ,angler which have appeared4 ,lessing's 8,nathan the ,wise40 ,translated1 with an ,introduction1 by ,major-,general ,,patrick ,,maxwell4 ,as the translator of ,schiller's 8,maid of ,orleans10 8,william ,tell10 and of various plays and essays1 ,general ,maxwell's work has been received with considerable critical appreciation4 ,an analysis of the play precedes the text in this volume1 and copious elucidatory notes are appended4 ,this translation of one of the most notable dramatic productions of the last century will be found as faithful and effective as any that has yet been given to the ,english reader4 ,,london3 ,,walter ,,scott1 ,,limited1 ,,paternoster ,,square4 ,,transcriber',s ,,notes ,simple typographical errors have been silently corrected2 unbalanced quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious1 and otherwise left unbalanced4 ,punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in the original book2 otherwise they were not changed4 ,inconsistent hyphens left as printed4