Boon, The Mind of the Race, The Wild Asses of the Devil, and The Last Trump Part 7

That led to a long, rambling discussion about the American literary atmosphere. Nothing that I could say would make him relent from his emphatic a.s.sertion that it is a spinster atmosphere, an atmosphere in which you can't say all sorts of things and where all sorts of things have to be specially phrased. "And she can't stand young things and crude things----"

"America!" said Wilkins.

"The America I mean. The sort of America that ought to supply young new writers with caresses and--nourishment. ...Instead of which you get the _Nation_.... That bleak acidity, that refined appeal to take the child away."

"But they don't produce new young writers!" said Wilkins.

"But they do!" said Boon. "And they strangle them!"

It was extraordinary what a power metaphors and fancies had upon Boon.

Only those who knew him intimately can understand how necessary Miss Bathwick was to him. He would touch a metaphor and then return and sip it, and then sip and drink and swill until it had intoxicated him hopelessly.

"America," said Boon, "can produce such a supreme writer as Stephen Crane--the best writer of English for the last half-century--or Mary Austin, who used to write---- What other woman could touch her? But America won't own such children. It's amazing. It's a case of concealment of birth. She exposes them. Whether it's Shame--or a Chinese trick.... She'll sit never knowing she's had a Stephen Crane, adoring the European reputation, the florid mental gestures of a Conrad. You see, she can tell Conrad 'writes.' It shows. And she'll let Mary Austin die of neglect, while she wors.h.i.+ps the 'art' of Mary Ward. It's like turning from the feet of a G.o.ddess to a pair of goloshes. She firmly believes that old quack Bergson is a bigger man than her own unapproachable William James.... She's incredible. I tell you it's only conceivable on one supposition.... I'd never thought before about these disgraceful sidelights on Miss Dove's career....

"We English do make foundlings of some of her little victims, anyhow.... But why hasn't she any natural instinct in the matter?

"Now, if one represented that peculiar Bostonian intellectual gentility, the _Nation_ kind of thing, as a very wicked, sour lady's-maid with a tremendous influence over the Spinster's conduct...."

His mind was running on.

"I begin to see a melodramatic strain in this great novel, 'Miss Dove.'... 'Miss Dove's Derelicts.'... Too broad, I am afraid. If one were to represent Sargent and Henry James as two children left out one cold night in a basket at a cottage in the village by a mysterious stranger, with nothing but a roll of dollars and a rough drawing of the Was.h.i.+ngton coat-of-arms to indicate their parentage....

"Then when they grow up they go back to the big house and she's almost kind to them....

"Have you ever read the critical articles of Edgar Allan Poe? They're very remarkable. He is always demanding an American Literature. It is like a deserted baby left to die in its cradle, weeping and wailing for its bottle.... What he wanted, of course, was honest and intelligent criticism.

"To this day America kills her Poes...."

"But confound it!" said Wilkins, "America does make discoveries for herself. Hasn't she discovered Lowes d.i.c.kinson?"

"But that merely helps my case. Lowes d.i.c.kinson has just the qualities that take the American judgement; he carries the shadow of King's College Chapel about with him wherever he goes; he has an un.o.btrusive air of being doubly starred in Baedeker and not thinking anything of it. And also she took Noyes to her bosom. But when has American criticism ever had the intellectual pluck to proclaim an American?

"And so, you see," he remarked, going off again at a tangent, "if we are going to bid for American adhesions there's only one course open to us in the matter of this presidential address.... Lord Morley...."

"You're a little difficult to follow at times," said Wilkins.

"Because he's the man who's safest not to say anything about babies or--anything alive.... Obviously a literary congress in America must be a festival in honour of sterility.

"Aunt Dove demands it. Like celebrating the virginity of Queen Elizabeth...."

-- 4

I find among the fragments of my departed friend some notes that seem to me to be more or less relevant here. They are an incomplete report of the proceedings of a section S, devoted to _Poiometry_, apparently the scientific measurement of literary greatness. It seems to have been under the control of a special committee, including Mr. James Huneker, Mr. Slosson, Sir Thomas Seccombe, Mr. James Douglas, Mr.

Clement K. Shorter, the acting editor of the _Bookman_, and the compet.i.tion editress of the _Westminster Gazette_....

Apparently the notes refer to some paper read before the section. Its authors.h.i.+p is not stated, nor is there any account of its reception.

But the t.i.tle is "The Natural History of Greatness, with especial reference to Literary Reputations."

The opening was evidently one of those rapid historical sketches frequent in such papers.

"Persuasion that human beings are sometimes of disproportionate size appears first in the Egyptian and Syrian wall paintings.... Probably innate.... The discouragement of the young a social necessity in all early societies. In all societies?... Exaggerated stories about the departed.... Golden ages. Heroic ages. Ancestor wors.h.i.+p.... Dead dogs better than living lions.... Abraham. Moses. The Homeric reputation, the first great literary cant. Resentment against Homer's exaggerated claims on the part of intelligent people. Zoilus. Caricature of the Homerists in the Satyricon. Other instances of unorthodox ancient criticism.... Shakespeare as an intellectual nuisance.... Extreme suffering caused to contemporary writers by the Shakespeare legend....

"Another form of opposition to these obsessions is the creation of countervailing reputations. Certain people in certain ages have resolved to set up Great Men of their own to put beside these Brocken spectres from the past. This marks a certain stage of social development, the beginning of self-consciousness in a civilized community. Self-criticism always begins in self-flattery. Virgil as an early instance of a Great Man of set intentions; deliberately put up as the Latin Homer....

"Evolution of the greatness of Aristotle during the Middle Ages.

"Little sense of contemporary Greatness among the Elizabethans.

"Comparison with the past the prelude to Great-Man-Making, begins with such a work as Swift's 'Battle of the Books.' Concurrently the decline in religious feeling robs the past of its half-mystical prestige. The Western world ripe for Great Men in the early nineteenth century. The Germans as a highly compet.i.tive and envious people take the lead. The inflation of Schiller. The greatness of Goethe. Incredible dullness of "Elective Affinities," of "Werther," of "Wilhelm Meister's Apprentices.h.i.+p." The second part of "Faust" a tiresome muddle. Large pretentiousness of the man's career. Resolve of the Germans to have a Great Fleet, a Great Empire, a Great Man. Difficulty in finding a suitable German for Greatening. Expansion of the Goethe legend. German efficiency brought to bear on the task. Lectures. Professors. Goethe compared to Shakespeare. Compared to Homer. Compared to Christ.

Compared to G.o.d. Discovered to be incomparable....

"Stimulation of Scotch activities. The Scotch also pa.s.sionately and aggressively patriotic. Fortunate smallness of Scotland and lack of adjacent docile Germans has alone saved the world from another Prussia. Desperation of the search for a real Scotch First Rater. The discovery that Burns was as great as Shakespeare. Greater. The booming of Sir Walter Scott. Wake up, England! The production of d.i.c.kens. The slow but enormous discovery of Wordsworth. Victorian age sets up as a rival to the Augustine. Selection of Great Men in every department.

The Great Victorian painters. Sir Frederick Leighton, compared with t.i.tian and Michael Angelo. Tennyson as Virgil. Lord Tennyson at the crest of the Victorian Greatness wave. His hair. His cloak. His n.o.ble bearing. His aloofness. His Great Pipe. His price per word. His intellectual familiarities with Queen Victoria....

"Longfellow essentially an American repartee....

"Ingrat.i.tude of British Royal Family to those who contributed to the Victorian Greatness period, shown in the absence of representative Great Men from the Buckingham Palace Monument. Victoria did not do it all. Compare the Albert Memorial....

"Interesting task to plan an alternative pedestal. Proposal to make designs for a monument to our own times. Symbolic corner groups by Will Dyson. Frieze of representative men by Max. Canopy by Wyndham Lewis. Lost opportunity for much bright discussion....

"a.n.a.lysis of literary greatness. Is any literary achievement essential to greatness? Probably a minute minimum indispensable. Burns.

Fitzgerald. But compare Lord Acton and Lord Reay. Necessity of a marked personality. Weaknesses, but no unpopular vices. Greatness blighted by want of dignity. Laurence Sterne. Reciprocal duty of those made Great not to distress their Public. But imperfectly established scandal or complexity of relations.h.i.+p may give scope for vindications and research. Or a certain irregularity of life may create a loyal and devoted following of sympathizers. Sh.e.l.ley.... Then capable advocacy is needed and a critical world large enough to be effective but small enough to be unanimous. Part an able publisher may play in establis.h.i.+ng and developing a Great Man.... Quiet Push, not Noisy Push. Injury done by tactless advertis.e.m.e.nt.... The element of luck....

"These are the seeds of greatness, but the growth depends upon the soil. The best soil is a large uncritical public newly come to reading, a little suspicious of the propriety of the practice and in a state of intellectual sn.o.bbishness. It must also be fairly uniform and on some common basis of ideas. Ideally represented by the reading publics of Germany, Britain, the United States, and France in the middle nineteenth century....

"Decline in the output of Greatness towards the end of the Victorian time. Probably due in all cases to an enlargement of the reading public to unmanageable dimensions. No reputation sufficiently elastic to cover it. The growth of Chicago, New York, and the West destroyed the preponderance of Boston in America, and the Civil War broke the succession of American Great Men. Rarity of new American-born Greatnesses after the war. Dumping of established greatnesses from England gave no chance to the native market. No Protection for America in this respect. In Great Britain the board schools create big ma.s.ses of intelligent people inaccessible to the existing machinery by which Greatness is imposed. The Greatness output in Britain declines also in consequence. Mrs. Humphry Ward, the last of the British Victorian Great. Expressed admiration of Mr. Gladstone for her work. Support of the _Spectator_. Profound respect of the American people. Rumour that she is represented as a sea G.o.ddess at the base of the Queen Victoria Memorial unfounded. n.o.body is represented on the Queen Victoria Memorial except Queen Victoria.... Necessity after the epoch of Mrs.

Ward of more and more flagrant advertis.e.m.e.nt to reach the enlarged public, so that at last touch is lost with the critical centres. Great Men beyond the Limit. Self-exploded candidates for Greatness.

Boomsters. Best Sellers. Mr. Hall Caine as the shocking example....

"Other causes contributing to the decay of Greatness among literary men. Compet.i.tion of politicians, princes, personages generally for the prestige of the literary man. Superior initial advantage in conspicuousness. The genuine writer handicapped. The process already beginning at the crest of the period. Queen Victoria's 'Leaves from a Highland Diary.' Mr. Gladstone and the higher windiness. Later developments. The Kaiser as a man of letters. Mr. Roosevelt as writer and critic. The Essays of President Wilson. The case of Lord Rosebery.

Mr. Haldane as a philosopher. As a critic. His opinion of Goethe.

Compare the royal and n.o.ble authors of Byzantium. Compare the Roman Emperor becoming Pontifex Maximus. Compare the cannibal chief in a general's hat....

"Return of the literary men as such to a decent obscurity. From which they are unlikely to emerge again. This an unmixed blessing. So long as good writing and sound thinking are still appreciated the less we hear about authors the better. Never so little recognized Greatness and never so much wise, subtle, sweet, and boldly conceived literary work as now. This will probably continue. [He was writing before the war.] The English-reading literary world too large now for the operations of Greatening. Doubtful case of Rabindranath Tagore.

Discuss this. Special suitability of India as a basis for Greatness.

India probably on the verge of a Greatness period....

"Disrespect a natural disposition in the young. Checked and subdued in small societies, but now happily rampant in the uncontrollable English-speaking communities. The new (undignified) criticism. The _English Review_. Mr. Austin Harrison and the street-boy style. The literature of the chalked fence. The _New Age_. Literary carbolic acid--with an occasional subst.i.tution of vitriol.... Insurrection of the feminine mind against wors.h.i.+p. Miss Rebecca West as the last birth of time. A virile-minded generation of young women indicated. Mrs.

Humphry Ward blushes publicly for the _Freewoman_ in the _Times_.

Hitherto Greatness has demanded the applause of youth and feminine wors.h.i.+p as necessary conditions. As necessary to its early stages as down to an eider chick. Impossible to imagine Incipient Greatness nestling comfortably upon Orage, Austin Harrison, and Rebecca West.

Dearth of young Sidney Colvins.... Unhappy position of various derelict and still imperfectly developed Great surviving from the old times. Arnold Bennett as an aborted Great Man. Would have made a Great Victorian and had a crowd of satellite helpers. Now no one will ever treasure his old hats and pipes....

"Idea of an experimental resurrection of those who still live in our hearts. If Goethe had a second time on earth----? Could he do it now?

Would Lord Haldane perceive him? Imaginary description of Lord Haldane's recognition of a youthful Goethe. They meet by accident during a walking tour in Germany. Amiable aloofness of Lord Haldane.

His gradual discovery of an intellectual superior in his modest companion. Public proclamation of his find.... Doubts....

"Peroration. Will the world be happy without Literary Greatnesses?

Improvise and take a cheerful line upon this question."