Part 12 (1/2)
DEAR SIR:
I have not wrote you before. This is a beautiful place. I like it, especially the young lady. The old man have been acting wild, like a cop when he can't find out who done it. The difference is that it is the bible in the old man and the devil in the cop. He says you have hoodooed the young lady, and he says let you be enathermered. This is a religious cuss word. The young lady don't cry. She is dead game, and have lost her colour.
So good by,
Yours trewly,
JACK O'MEARA.
P.S.--The young lady have quit the family prayers, but me and the old man have to say ours just the same, only more so.
XLVII
FROM PHILIP'S DIARY
A wise man of the sect of Simon Magus has replied to an a.s.sault of mine on humanitarianism by trying to show that in this one faith of modern days are summed up all the varying ideals of past ages,--renunciation, self-development, religion, chivalry, humanism, pantheistic return to nature, liberty. Ah, my dear sir, I envy you your easy, kindly vision.
Indeed, all these do persist in a dim groping way, empty echoes of great words that have been, bare shadows without substance. What made them something more than graceful acts of materialism was that each and all ended not in themselves or in worldly accommodation, but in some purpose outside of human nature as our humanitarians comprehend that nature.
Renunciation was practised, not that my neighbour might have a morsel more of bread, but that one hungry soul might turn from the desires of the flesh to its own purer longings. Self-development looked to the purging and making perfect of the bodily faculties, that within the chamber of a man's own breast might dwell in sweet serenity the eternal spirit of beauty and joy. Even humanism, which by its name would seem to be brother to its present-day parody, perceived an ideal far above the vicious circle in which humanitarianism gyrates. My dear foe might read Castiglione's book of _The Courtier_ and learn how high the Platonic ideal of the better humanists floated above the charitable mockery of its name to-day. As for religion--go to almost any church in the land and hear what exhortations flow from the pulpit. The intellectual contention of dogmas is forgotten--and better so, possibly. But more than that: for one word on the spirit or on the way and necessity of the soul's individual growth, you will hear a thousand on the means of bettering the condition of the poor; for one word on the personal relation of man to his G.o.d, you will hear a thousand on the duties of man to man. Woe unto you, preachers of a base creed, hypocrites! These things ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone! You have betrayed the faith and forgotten your high charge; you have made of religion a mingling for this world's use of materialism and altruism, while the spirit hungers and is not fed. Like your father of old, that Simon Magus, you have sought to buy the gift of G.o.d with a price; like Judas Iscariot you have betrayed the Lord with a kiss of brotherhood! Now might the Keeper of the Keys cry out to-day with other meaning:
”How well could I have spared for thee, young swain, Enow of such, as for their bellies' sake Creep and intrude and climb into the fold!
Of other care they little reckoning make Than how to scramble at the shearer's feast, And shove away the worthy bidden guest.
Blind mouths!”
XLVIII
FROM PHILIP'S DIARY
Reading a foolish book on the Literature of Indiana (!) and find this sentence on the first page: ”It is not of so great importance that a few individuals within a State shall, from time to time, show talent or genius, as that the general level of cultivation in the community shall be continually raised.” Whereupon the author proceeds to glorify the ”general level” through a whole volume. Now the noteworthy thing about this particular sentence is the fact that it was set down as a mere truism needing no proof, and that it was no doubt so accepted by most readers of the book. In reality the sentiment is so far from a truism that it would have excited ridicule in any previous age; it might almost be said to contain the fundamental error which is responsible for the low state of culture in the country. Unfortunately the point cannot be profitably argued out, for it resolves itself at last into a question of taste. There are those who are chiefly interested in the life of the intellect and the imagination. They measure the value of a civilisation by the kind of imaginative and intellectual energy it displays, by its top growth in other words. They crave to see life express itself thus, _sub specie oeernitatis_, and apart from this conversion of human energy and emotion into enduring forms they perceive in the weltering procession of transient human lives no more significance or value than in the endless fluctuation of the waves of the sea. For them, therefore, the creation of one masterpiece of genius has more meaning than the physical or mental welfare of a whole generation; they can, indeed, discern no genuine intellectual welfare of a people except in so far as the people look up reverently to the products of the higher imagination. There are others for whom this life of the imagination has only a lukewarm interest, for the reason that their own faculties are weak and stunted. Naturally they think it a slight matter whether genius appear to create what they and their kind can only dimly enjoy; on the contrary, they hold it of prime importance that material welfare and the form of mental cunning which subdues material forces should be widely diffused among the people.
Now no one would say a word against raising ”the general level of cultivation”; the higher it is raised the better. Only the cheris.h.i.+ng of this ideal becomes pernicious when it is made more sacred than the appearance of individual genius. Nor is it proper to say that the appearance of genius is itself contingent on the level of cultivation.
There is much confusion of thought here. The influence of the people on literature is invariably attended with danger. It has its element of good, for the people cherish those instinctive pa.s.sions and notions of morality which keep art from falling into artificiality. But refinement, distinction, form, spirituality--all that makes of art a transcript of life _sub specie oeernitatis_--are commonly opposed to the popular interest and are even distrusted by the people. The att.i.tude of the Elizabethan playwrights toward their audiences gives food for reflection on this head. Just so sure as the ideal of general cultivation is made paramount, just so sure will the higher culture become degraded to this consideration, and with its degradation the general cultivation itself will grow base and material.
XLIX
FROM PHILIP'S DIARY