No More Learning

"PromenadesPhilosophiques"(1905-8). Onecan- notbriefsuchworkasthePromenades. Thesoleresult is a series of aphorisms, excellent perhaps, but without cohesion ; a dozen or so will show an intelligence, but convey neither style nor personality of the author:
"Sans doute la reHgion n'est pas vraie, mais I'anti-re- ligion n'est pas vraie non plus: la verite reside dans un etat parfait d'indifference.
? REMY DE GOURMONT
187
"Peu importe qu'on me sollicite par des ecrits ou par des paroles; le mal ne commence qu'au moment ou on m'yplieparlaforce. " AutrePointdeVue.
"L'argent est le signe de la liberty. Maudire I'argent, c'est maudire la liberte, c'est maudire la vie qui est nulle si elle n'est libre. " L'Arg'ent.
'Quand on voudra definir la philosophic du XlXeme siecle, on s'apercevra qu'il n'a fait que de la theologie.
"Apprendre pour apprendre est peut-etre aussi grossier que manger pour manger.
"C'est singulier en litterature, quand la forme n'est pas nouvelle, le fond ne Test pas non plus.
"Le nu de I'art conteroporain est un nu d'hydrotherapie.
"L'art doit etre a la mode ou creer la mode.
"Les pacifistes, de braves gens a genoux, pres d'une balance et priant le ciel qu'elle s'incline, non pas selon les lois de la pesanteur, mais selon leurs voeux.
"La propriete est necessaire, mais il ne I'eSt pas qu'elle reste toujours dans les memes mains.
"II y a une simulation de 1' intelligence comme il y a une simulation de la vertu.
"Le roman historique. II y a aussi la peinture his-
? i88 INSTIGATIONS
torique, I'architecture historique, et, a la mi-careme, le costume historique.
"Etre impersonnel c'est etre personnel scion un mode particulier:VoyezFlaubert. Ondiraitenjargon:Tob- jectif est une des formes du subjectif.
"La maternite, c'est beau, tant qu'on n'y fait pas atten- tion. C'est vulgaire des qu'on admire. ?
"L'excuse du christianisme, ga a ete son impuissance sur la realite. 11 a corrompu I'esprit bien plus que la vie. "Je ne garantis pas qu'aucune de ces notes ne se trouve deja dans un de mes ecrits, ou qu'elle ne figurera pas dans un ecrit futur. On les retrouvera peut-etre meme dansdesecritsquineserontpaslesmiens. " DesPassur
le Sable.
Those interested in the subject will take "Le Prob-
LEME DU Style" (1902) entire; the general position may perhaps be indicated very vaguely by the following quo- tations :
"Quant a la peur de se gater le style, c'est bon pour un Bemho, qui use d'une langue factice. Le style peut se fatiguer comme I'honune meme ; il vieillira de meme que I'intelligenceetlasensibilitedontilestlesigne; maispas plus que I'individu, il ne changera de personnalite, a moins d'un cataclysme psychologique. Le regime ali- mentaire, le sejour a la campagne ou a Paris, les occupa- tions sentimentales et leurs suites, les maladies ont bien plus d'influence sur un style vrai que les mauvaises lec- tures. Le style est un produit physiologique, et I'un des plus constants; quoique dans la dependance des diverses fonctions vitales.
"Les Etats-Unis tomberaient en langueur, sans les
;
? REMY DE GOURMONT 189
voyages en Europe de leur aristocratie, sans la diversite extreme des climats, des sols et par consequent des races en evolution dans ce vaste empire. Les echanges entre peuples sont aussi necessaires a la revigoration de chaque peuple que le commerce social a I'exaltation de I'energie individuelle. On n'a pas pris garde a cette necessite quand on parle avec regret de I'influence des litteratures etrangeres sur notre litterature.
"Aujourd'hui I'influence d'Euripide pourrait encore de- terminer en un esprit original d'interessantes oeuvres; I'imitateur de Racine depasserait a peine le comique in- volontaire. L'etude de Racine ne deviendra profitable que dans plusieurs siecles et seulement a condition que, completement oublie, il semble entierement nouveau, en- tierement etranger, tel que le sont devenus pour le public d'aujourd'hui Adenes li Rois ou Jean de Meung. Euri- pide etait nouveau au XVIIeme siecle. Theocrite I'etait alors que Chenier le transposait. 'Quand je fais des vers, insinuait Racine, je songe toujours a dire ce qui ne s'estpointencoreditdansnotrelangue. ' AndreChenier a voulu exprimer cela aussi dans une phrase maladroite
et s'il ne I'a dit il I'a fait. Horace a bafoue les serviles imitateurs ; il n'imitait pas les Grecs, il les etudiait,
" 'Le style est I'homme meme' est un propos de natural- iste, qui sait que le chant des oiseaux est determine par la forme de leur bee, I'attache de leur langue, le diametre de leur gorge, la capacite de leurs poumons.
"Le style, c'est de sentir, de voir, de penser, et rien plus. "Le style est une specialisation de la sensibilite.
? I90 INSTIGATIONS
"Une idee n'est qu'une sensation defraichie, una image efFacee.
"La vie est un depouillement. Le but de I'activite propre d'un homme est de nettoyer sa personnalite, de la laver de toutes les souillures qu'y deposa I'education, de la degager de toutes les empreintes qu'y laisserent nos admirations adolescentes.
"Depuis un siecle et demi, les connaissances scien- tifiques ont augmente enormement; I'esprit scientifique a retrograde; il n'y a plus de contact immediat entre ceux qui lisent et ceux qui creent la science, et (je cite pour la seconde fois la reflexion capitale de Buffon) : 'On n'acquiert aucune connaissance transmissible qu'en voyant par soi-meme' : Les ouvrages de seconde main amusent 1 'intelligence et ne stimulent pas son activite.
"Rien ne pousse a la concision comme I'abondance des idees. " LeProbUmeduStyle,1902.
Christianity lends itself to fanaticism. Barbarian ethics proceed by general taboos. The relation of two individuals in relation is so complex that no third person can pass judgment upon it. Civilization is individual. The truth is the individual. The light of the Renais- sance shines in Varchi when he declines to pass judgment on Lorenzaccio.
One might make an index of, but one cannot write an essay upon, the dozen volumes of Gourmont's collected discussions. There was weariness towards the end of his life. It shows in even the leisurely charm of "Lettres aI'Amazone. " Therewasafinalflashinhisdrawingof M. Croquant.
? REMY DE GOURMONT 191
The list of his chief works published by the Mercure da France, 26 Rue de Conde, Paris, is as follows:
"Sixtine. "
"Le Pelerin du Silence. "
"Les Chevaux de Diomede. "
"D'un Pays Lointain. "
"Le Songe d'une Femme. "
"Lilith, suivi de Theodat. "
"Une Nuit au Luxembourg. "
"Un Coeur Virginal. "
"Couleurs, suivi de Choses Anciennes. " "Histoires Magiques. "
"Lettres d'un Satyre. "
"Le Chat de Misere.
"Simone. "
Critique
"Le Latin Mystique. "
"Le Livre des Masques" (ler. et Heme).
"La Culture des Idees. "
"Le Chemin de Velours. "
"Le Probleme du Style. "
"Physique de I'Amour. "
"Epilogues. "
"Esthetique de la Langue Frangaise. "
"Promenades Litteraires. "
"Promenades Philosophiques. "
"Dialogue des Amateurs sur les Choses du Temps. " "Nouveaux Dialogues des Amateurs sur les Choses du
Temps. "
"Dante, Beatrice et la Poesie Amoureuse. " "Pendant I'Orage. "
? 192 INSTIGATIONS
De Gourmont's readiness to cooperate in my first plans for establishing some sort of periodical to maintain com- munications between New York, London and Paris, was graciously shown in the following (post-mark June 13, '15):
Dvmanche.
Cher Monsieur:
J'ai lu avec plaisir votre longue lettre, qui m'expose si
clairement la necessite d'une revue unissant les efforts des Americains,desAnglais,etdesFran^ais. Pourcela,je vous servirai autant qu'il sera en mon pouvoir. Je ne crois pas que je puisse beaucoup. J'ai une mauvaise sante et je suis extremement fatigue; je ne pourrai vous donner que des choses tres courtes, des indications d'idees plutot que des pages accomplies, mais je ferai de mon mieux. J'esperequevousreussirezamettredeboutcette petite affaire litteraire et que vous trouverez parmi nous des concours utiles. Evidemment si nous pourions ame- ner les Americains a mieux sentir la vraie litterature fran- Qaise et surtout a ne pas la confondre avec tant d'oeuvres courantes si mediocres, cela serait un resultat tres heu- reux. Sont-ils capables d'assez de liberte d'esprit pour lire, sans etre choques, mes livres par example, elle est bien douteux et il faudrait pour cela un long travail de preparation. Mais pourquoi ne pas I'entreprendre ? En tous les pays, il y a un noyau de bons esprits, d'esprits libres, il faut leur donner quelque chose qui les change de la fadeur des magazines, quelque chose qui leur donne confiance en eux-memes et leur soit un point d'appui. Comme vous le dites, il faudra pour commencer les amener a respecter I'individualisme franqais, le sens de la liberte que quelques uns d'entre nous possedent a un si haut point. lis comprennent cela en theologie. Pour- quoi ne le comprendraient-ils pas en art, en poesie, en
--
? REMY DE GOURMONT 193
litterature, en philosophic. II faut leur faire voir--s'ils ne le vbient pas deja--que rindividualisme fran(;ais peut, quand il le faut, se plier aux plus dures disciplines.
Conquerir I'Americain n'est pas sans doute votre seul but. Le but du Mercure a ete de permettre k ceux qui en valent la peine d'ecrire franchement ce qu'il pense seul plaisir d'un ecrivain. Cela doit aussi etre le votre.
Votre bien devoue,
Remy de Gourmont.
"The aim of the Mercure has been to permit any man, who is worth it, to write down his thought frankly this is a writer's sole pleasure. And this aim should be yours. "
"Are they capable of enough mental liberty to read my books, for example, without being horrified? I think this very doubtful, and it will need long preparation. But why not try it ? There are in all countries knots of intelligent people, open-minded ; one must give something to relieve them from the staleness of magazines, some- thing which will give them confidence in themselves and serve as a rallying point. As you say, one must begin by getting them to respect French individualism; the sense of liberty which some of us have in so great degree. They understand this in theology, why should they not understand it in art, poetry, literature ? "
If only my great correspondent could have seen letters I received about this time from English alleged intellec- tuals ! ! ! ! ! ! ! The incredible stupidity, the ingrained re- fusal of thought ! ! ! ! ! Of which more anon, if I can bring myself to it. Or let it pass? Let us say simply that De Gourmont's words form an interesting contrast with the methods employed by the British literary epis-
:--
? 194 INSTIGATIONS
copacy to keep one from writing what one thinks, or to punish one (financially) for having done so.
Perhaps as a warning to young writers who can not afford the loss, one would be justified in printing the following
50a. Albermarle Street, London W.
22 October, '14: Dear Mr. Pound:
Many thanks for your letter of the other day. I am afraid I must say frankly that I do not think I can open the columns of the Q. R. --at any rate, at present--^to any one associated publicly with such a publication as Blast. It stamps a man too disadvantageously.
Yours truly,
G. W. Prothero.
Of course, having accepted your paper on the Noh, I could not refrain from publishing it. But other things would be in a different category.
I need scarcely say that The Quarterly Review is one of the most profitable periodicals in England, and one of one's best "connections," or sources of income. It has, of course, a tradition.
"It is not that Mr. Keats (if that be his real name, for we almost doubt that any man in his senses would put his real name to such a rhapsody)"
write their Gifford of Keats' "Endymion. " My only com- mentisthattheQuarterlyhasdoneitagain. TheirMr. A. Waugh is a lineal descendant of Gifford, by way of mentality. A century has not taught them manners. In the eighteen forties they were still defending the review
? REMY DE GOURMONT I9S
)fKeats. AndmorerecentlyWaughhaslifteduphis ienile slobber against Mr. Eliot. It is indeed time that :he functions of both English and American literature were taken over by younger and better men.
As for their laying the birch on my pocket. I compute ;hat my support of Lewis and Brzeska has cost me at the lowest estimate about i20 per year, from one source ilone since that regrettable occurrence, since I dared to discern a great sculptor and a great painter in the midst jf England's artistic desolation. ("European and Asiatic papers please copy. ")
Young men, desirous of finding before all things smooth berths and elderly consolations, are cautioned to behave more circumspectly.
The generation that preceded us does not care much whether we understand French individualism, or the difference between the good and bad in French literature. Nor is it conceivable that any of them would write to a foreigner: "indications of ideas, rather than work ac- complished, but I will send you my best. "
De Gourmont's next communication to me was an in- quiry about Gaudier-Brzeska's sculpture.
? IV
IN THE VORTEX
Eliot
Joyce
Lewis
An historical essayist The new poetry Breviora
T. S. ELIOT
// n'y a de livres que ceux oil un ecrivain s'est raconte lui-meme en racontant les moeurs de ses contemporains-- leurs reves, leurs vanites, leurs amours, et leurs folies. -- Remy de Gourmont.
De Gourmont uses this sentence in writing of the in- contestable superiority of "Madame Bovary," "L'fiduca- tion Sentimentale" and "Bouvard et Pecuchet" to "Sa- lammbo"and"LaTentationdeSt. Antoine. " Acasual thought convinces one that it is true for all prose. Is it true also for poetry? One may give latitude to the in- terpretation of reves; the gross public would have tlie poet write little else, but De Gourmont keeps a propor- tion. The vision should have its place in due setting if we are to believe its reality.
*Prufrock and Other Observations, by T. S. Eliot. The Egoist, London. Essay first published in Poetry, 1917.
196
? IN THE VORTEX 197
The few poems which Mr. Eliof has given us maintain this proportion, as they maintain other proportions of art. After much contemporary work that is merely factitious, much that is good in intention but impotently unfinished and incomplete ; much whose flaws are due to sheer igno- rance which a year's study or thought might have reme- died, it is a comfort to come upon complete art, naive despite its intellectual subtlety, lacking all pretense.
It is quite safe to compare Mr. Eliot's work with any- thing written in French, English or American since the death of Jules Laforgue. The reader will find nothing better, and he will be extremely fortunate if he finds much half as good.
The necessity, or at least the advisability of comparing English or American work with French work is not readily granted by the usual English or American writer. If you suggest it, the Englishman answers that he has not thought about it--he does not see why he should bother himself about what goes on south of the channel; the American replies by stating that you are "no longer American. " This is the bitterest jibe in his vocabulary. The net result is that it is extremely difficult to read one's contemporaries. Afteratimeonetiresof"promise.
"
I should like the reader to note how complete is Mr. Eliot's depiction of our contemporary condition. He has not confined himself to genre nor to society portraiture. His
lonely men in shirt-sleeves leaning out of windows are as real as his ladies who
come and go Talking of Michelangelo.
His "one night cheap hotels" are as much "there" as are his
? 198 INSTIGATIONS
four wax candles in the darkened room, Four rings of light upon the ceiling overhead, An atmosphere of Juliet's tomb.
And, above all, there is no rhetoric, although there is Elizabethanreadinginthebackground. WereIaFrench critic, skilled in their elaborate art of writing books about books, I should probably go to some length discussing Mr. Eliot's two sorts of metaphor: his wholly unrealiz- able, always apt, half ironic suggestion, and his precise realizable picture. It would be possible to point out his method of conveying a whole situation and half a char- acter by three words of a quoted phrase; his constant aliveness, his mingling of very subtle observation with the unexpectedness of a backhanded cliche. It is, how- ever,extremelydangeroustopointoutsuchdevices. The method is Mr. Eliot's own, but as soon as one has re- duced even a fragment of it to formula, some one else, not Mr. Eliot, some one else wholly lacking in his apti- tudes, will at once try to make poetry by mimicking his externalprocedure. Andthisindefinite"someone"will, needless to say, make a botch of it.
For what the statement is worth, Mr. Eliot's work in- terests me more than that of any other poet now writing in English. * The most interesting poems in Victorian English are Browning's "Men and Women," or, if that statement is too absolute, let me contend that the form of these poems is the most vital form of that period of English, and that the poems written in that form are the least like each other in content. Antiquity gave us Ovid's "Heroides" and Theocritus' woman using magic- The form of Browning's "Men and Women" is more alive
*A. D. 1917.
;
? IN THE VORTEX 199
than the epistolary form of the "Heroides. " Browning included a certain amount of radocination and of purely intellectual comment, and in just that proportion he lost intensity. SinceBrowningtherehavebeenveryfewgood poems of this sort. Mr. Eliot has made two notable ad- ditions to the list. And he has placed his people in con- temporary settings, which is much more difficult than to render them with mediaeval romantic trappings. If it is permitted to make comparison with a different art, let me say that he has used contemporary detail very much as Velasquez used contemporary detail in "Las Meninas" the cold gray-green tones of the Spanish painter have, it seems to me, an emotional value not unlike the emotional value of Mr. Eliot's rhythms, and of his vocabulary.
James Joyce has written the best novel of my decade, and perhaps the best criticism of it has come from a Bel- gian who said, "All this is as true of my country as of Ireland. " Eliot has a like ubiquity of application. Art does not avoid utiiversals, it strikes at them all the harder in that it strikes through particulars. Eliot's work rests"'! apart from that of the many new writers who have used the present freedoms to no advantage, who have gained no new precisions of language, and no variety in their cadence. His men in shirt-sleeves, and his society ladies, are not a local manifestation; they are the stuff of our/ modern world, and true of more countries than one. I would praise the work for its fine toile, its humanity, and its realism ; for all good art is realism of one sort or an- other.
It is complained that Eliot is lacking in emotion. "La Figlia che Piange" is an adequate confutation.
If the reader wishes mastery of "regular form," the "Conversation Galante" is sufficient to show that symmet- rical form is within Mr. Eliot's grasp. You will hardly
? 200 V INSTIGATIONS
findsuchneatnesssaveinFrance; suchmodernneatness, save in Laforgue.
De Gourmont's phrase to the contrary notwithstanding, the supreme test of a book is that we should feel some unusualintelligenceworkingbehindthewords. Bythis test various other new books, that I have, or might have, beside me, go to pieces. The barrels of sham poetry that every decade and school and fashion produce, go to pieces. It is sometimes extremely difficult to find any other particular reason for their being so. unsatisfactory. I have expressly written here not "intellect" but "intelli- gence. " Thereisnointelligencewithoutemotion. The emotionmaybeanteriororconcurrent. Theremaybe emotion without much intelligence, but that does not con- cern us.
Versification:
A conviction as to the rightness or wrongness of vers libre is no guarantee of a poet. I doubt if there is much use trying to classify the various kinds of vers libre, but there is an anarchy which may be vastly overdone; and there is a monotony of bad usage as tiresome as any typical eighteenth or nineteenth century flatness.
In a recent article Mr. Eliot contended, or seemed to contend, that good vers libre was little more than a skilful evasionofthebetterknownEnglishmetres. Hisarticle was defective in that he omitted all consideration of metres depending on quantity, alliteration, etc. ; in fact, he wrote as if metres were measured by accent. This may have been tactful on his part, it may have brought his article nearer to the comprehension of his readers (that is, those of the "New Statesman," people chiefly concerned with sociology of the "button" and "unit" vari- ety). But he came nearer the fact when he wrote else-
? IN THE VORTEX 201
where : "No vers is libre for the man who wants to do a good job. "
Alexandrine and other grammarians have made cubby- holes for various groupings of syllables; they have put names upon them, and have given various labels to "metres" consisting of combinations of these different groups. Thus it would be hard to escape contact with somegrouporother; onlyanencyclopedistcouldeverbe half sure he had done so. The known categories would allow a fair liberty to the most conscientious traditional- ist. The most fanatical vers-librist will escape them with difficulty. However, I do not think there is any cry- ing need for verse with absolutely no rhythmical basis.
On the other hand, I do not believe that Chopin wrote toametronome. Thereisundoubtedlyasenseofmusic that takes count of the "shape" of the rhythm in a mel- ody rather than of bar divisions, which came rather late in the history of written music and were certainly not the first or most important thing that musicians attempted to record. The creation of such shapes is part of the- matic invention. Some musicians have the faculty of in- vention, rhythmic, melodic. Likewise some poets.
Treatises full of musical notes and of long and short marks have never been convincingly useful. Find a man with thematic invention and all he can say is that he gets what the Celts call a "chune" in his head, and that the words "go into it," or when they don't "go into it" they "stick out and worry him. "
You can not force a person to play a musical master- piece correctly, even by having the notes "correctly" printed on the paper before him; neither can you force a person to feel the movement of poetry, be the metre "regular" or "irregular. " I have heard Mr. Yeats try- ing to read Burns, struggling in vain to fit the "Birks o'
? 202 INSTIGATIONS
Aberfeldy'' and "Bonnie Alexander" into the mournful l<eenofthe"WindamongtheReeds. " Eveninregular metres there are incompatible systems of music.
I have heard the best orchestral conductor in England read poems in free verse, poems in which the rhythm was so faint as to be almost imperceptible. He read them with the author's cadence, with flawless correctness. A distinguished statesman read from the same book, with the intonations of a legal document, paying no attention to themovementinherentinthewordsbeforehim. Ihave heard a celebrated Dante scholar and mediaeval enthusi- ast read the sonnets of the "Vita Nuova" as if they were not only prose, but the ignominious prose of a man de- void of emotions : an utter castration.
The leader of orchestra said to me, "There is more for a musician in a few lines with something rough or un- even, such as Byron's
There be none of Beauty's daughters With a magic like thee;
than in whole pages of regular poetry. "
IJnless a man can put some thematic invention into
I'ers lihre, he would perhaps do well to stick to "regular" metres, which have certain chances of being musical from their form, and certain other chances of being musical throughhisfailureinfittingtheform. Inverslibrehis musical chances are but in sensitivity and invention.
Mr. Eliot is one of the very few who have given a personal rhythm, an identifiable quality of sound as wdl as of style. And at any rate, his book is the best thing in poetry since . . . (for the sake of peace I will leave thatdatetotheimagination). Ihavereadmostofthe poemsmanytimes; Ilastreadthewholebookatbreak- fast time and from flimsy proof-sheets: I believe these are"testconditions. " And,"confoundit,thefellowcan write. "
? IN THE VORTEX. 203
JOYCE *
Despite the War, despite the paper shortage, and de- spite those old-established publishers whose god is their belly and whose god-father was the late F. T. Palgrave, there is a new edition of James Joyce's "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. " t It is extremely gratifying that this book should have "reached its fourth thousand," and the fact is significant in just so far as it marks the beginning of a new phase of English publishing, a phase comparable to that started in France some years ago by the Mercure.
The old houses, even those, or even more those, Which once had a literary tradition, or at least literary preten- sions, having ceased to care a damn about literature, the lovers of good writing have "stinick"; have sufficiently banded themselves together to get a few good books into print, and even into circulation. The actual output is small in bulk, a few brochures of translations, Eliot's "Prufrock," Joyce's "A Portrait," and Wyndham Lewis' "Tarr," but I have it on good authority that at least one other periodical will start publishing its authors after the War, so there are new rods in pickle for the old fat-stom- ached contingent and for the cardboard generation.
Joyce's"APortrait"isliterature; ithasbecomealmost the prose bible of a few people, and I think I have en- countered at least three hundred admirers of the book, certainly that number of people who, whether they "like" it or not, are wholly convinced of its merits.
Mr. Wells I have encountered in print, where he says that Joyce has a cloacal obsession, but he also says that Mr. Joyce writes literature and that his book is to be ranked with the works of Sterne and of Swift.
* The Future, May, 1918.
t "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. " Egoist, Ltd. London. Huebsch,NewYork.
--'
? 204 INSTIGATIONS
Wells is no man to babble of obsessions, but let it stand to his honor that he came out with a fine burst of admiration for a younger and half-known writer.
From England and America there has come a finer volume of praise for this novel than for any that I can remember. There has also come impotent spitting and objurgation from the back-woods and from Mr. Dent's office boy, and, as offset, interesting comment in modem Greek, French and Italian.
Joyce's poems have been reprinted by Elkin Mathews, his short stories re-issued, and a second novel started in "The Little Review. "
For all the book's being so familiar, it is pleasant to take up "A Portrait" in its new exiguous form, and one enters many speculations, perhaps more than when one read it initially. It is not that one can open to a forgot- ten page so much as that wherever one opens there is always a place to start; some sentence like
"Stephen looked down coldly on the oblong skull be- neath him overgrown with tangled twine-colored hair"; or
"Frowsy girls sat along the curbstones before their baskets" ; or
"He drained his third cup of watery tea to the dregs and set to chewing the crusts of fried bread that were scattered near him, staring into the dark pool of the jar. The yellow dripping had been scooped out like a boghole, and the pool under it brought back to his memory the darkturf-coloredwaterofthebathinClongowes. The box of pawntickets at his elbow had just been rifled, and he took up idly one after another in his greasy fingers the blue and white dockets, scrawled and sanded and creased and bearing the name of the pledger as Daly or MacEvoy.
"i Pair Buskins, &c. "
::
? IN THE VORTEX
^ I do not mean to imply that a novel is necess\ bad novel because one can pick it up without beft^ this manner caught and dragged into reading; but indicate the curiously seductive interest of the clear-\ and definite sentences.
Neither, emphatically, is it to be supposed that Joyce's writing is merely a depiction of the sordid. The sordid is there in all conscience as you would find it in De Gon- court, but Joyce's power is in his scope. The reach of his writing is from the fried breadcrusts and from the fig-seeds in Cranley's teeth to the casual discussion of Aquinas
"He wrote a hymn for Maundy Thursday. It begins with the words Pange lingua glohosi. They say it is the highestgloryofthehymnal. Itisanintricateandsooth- ing hymn. I like it ; but there is no hymn that can be put beside that mournful and majestic processional song, the Vexilla Regis of Venantius Fortunatus.
"Lynch began to sing softly and solemnly in a deep bass voice
Tmpleta sunt quae concinit
David fideli carmine
"They turned into Lower Mount Street.
A few steps from the corner a fat young man, wearing a silk neck-
cloth, &c. "
On almost every page of Joyce you will find just such
swift alternation of subjective beauty and external shab- biness, squalor, and sordidness. It is the bass and treble ofhismethod. Andhehashisscopebeyondthatofthe novelists his contemporaries, in just so far as whole stretches of his keyboard are utterly out of their com- pass.
The conclusion or moral termination from all of which is that the great writers of any period must be the re-
. . .
. '
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markable minds of that period ; they must know the ex- tremes of their time; they must not represent a social status; they cannot be the "Grocer" or the "Dilettante" with the egregious and capital letter, nor yet the profes- sor or the professing wearer of Jaeger or professional eater of herbs.
In the three hundred pages of "A Portrait of the Artist as a. Young Man'' there is no omission ; there is nothing in life so beautiful that Joyce cannot touch it without profanation--without, above all, the profana- tions of sentiment and sentimentality--and there is nothing so sordid that he cannot treat it with his metal- lic exactitude.
I think there are few people who can read Shaw, Wells, Bennett, or even Conrad (who is in a category apart) without feeling that there are values and tonalities to which these authors are wholly insensitive. I do not imply that there cannot be excellent art within quite dis- tinct limitations, but the artist cannot afford to be or to appear ignorant of such limitations ; he cannot afford a pretenseofsuchignorance. Hemustalmostchoosehis limitations. If he paints a snuff-box or a stage scene he must not be ignorant of the fact, he must not think he is painting a landscape, three feet by two feet, in oils.
I think that what tires me more than anything else in the writers now past middle age is that they always seem to imply that they are giving us all modern life, the whole social panorama, all the instruments of the orchestra. Joyce is of another donation.
His earlier book, "Dubliners," contained several well- constructed stories, several sketches rather lacking in form. Itwasadefinitepromiseofwhatwastocome. There is very little to be said in praise of it which would not apply with greater force to "A Portrait. " I find that
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whoever reads one book inevitably sets out in search of the other.
The quality and distinction of the poems in the first half of Mr. Joyce's "Chamber Music" (new edition, pub- lished by Elkin Mathews, 4A, Cork Street, W. i, at is. 3d. ) is due in part to their author's strict musical train- ing. We have here the lyric in some of its best tradi- tions, and one pardons certain trifling inversions, much against the taste of the moment, for the sake of the clean- cut ivory finish, and for the interest of the rhythms, the
cross run of the beat and the word, as of a stiff wind cutting the ripple-tops of bright water.
The wording is Elizabethan, the metres at times sug- gesting Herrick, but in no case have I been able to find a poem which is not in some way Joyce's own, even though he would seem, and that most markedly, to shun apparent originality, as in:
Who goes amid the green wood With springtide all adorning her?
Who goes amid the rtierry green wood To make it merrier?
Who passes in the sunlight
By ways that know the light footfall ?
Who passes in the sweet sunlight With mien so virginal?
The ways of all the woodland Gleam with a soft and golden fire
For whom does all the sunny woodland Carry so brave attire?
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O, it is for my true love
The woods their rich apparel wear
O, it is for my true love, That is so young and fair.
Here, as in nearly every poem, the motif is so slight that the poem scarcely exists until one thinks of it as set to music ; and the workmanship is so delicate that out of twenty readers scarce one will notice its fineness. If Henry Lawes were alive again he might make the suit- able music, for the cadence is here worthy of his cun- ning:
O, it is for my true love. That is so young and fair.
The musician's work is very nearly done for him, and yet how few song-setters could be trusted to finish it and to fill in an accompaniment.
The tone of the book deepens with the poem begin- ning:
O sweetheart, hear you Your lover's tale;
A man shall have sorrow When friends him fail.
For he shall know then Friends be untrue;
And a little ashes Their words come to.
The collection comes to its end and climax in two pro- foundly emotional poems ; quite different in tonality and
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in rhythm-quality, from the lyrics in the first part of the book :
All day I hear the noise of waters Making moan,
Sad as the sea-bird is, when going Forth alone.
He hears the wind cry to the waters' Monotone.
The gray winds, the cold winds are blowing Where I go.
I hear the noise of many waters Far below.
All day, all night, I hear them flowing To and fro.
The third and fifth lines should not be read with an end stop. I think the rush of the words will escape the notice of scarcely any one. The phantom hearing in this poem is coupled, in the next poem, to phantom vision, and to a robustezza of expression
I hear an army charging upon the land.
And the thunder of horses plunging, foam about their
knees
Arrqgant, in black armour, behind them stand.
Disdaining the reins, with fluttering whips, the chari- oteers.
They cry unto the night their battle-name
I moan in sleep when I hear afar their whirling laugh-
ter;
They cleave the gloom of dreams, a blinding flame,
Qanging, clanging upon the heart as upon an anvil.
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They come shaking in triumph their long green hair They come out of the sea and run shouting by the
shore
My heart, have you no wisdom thus to despair ?
My love, my love, my love, why have you left me alone ?
In both these poems we have a strength and a fibrous- ness of sound which almost prohibits the thought of their being "set to music," or to any music but that which is in them when spoken; but we notice a similarity of the technique to that of the earlier poems, in so far as the beauty of movement is produced by a very skilful, or per- haps we should say a deeply intuitive, interruption of metric mechanical regularity. It is the irregularity which has shown always in the best periods.
The book is an excellent antidote for those who find Mr. Joyce's prose "disagreeable" and who at once fly to conclusions about Mr. Joyce's "cloacal obsessions. " I have yet to find in Joyce's published works a violent or malodorous phrase which does not justify itself not only by its verity, but by its heightening of some opposite ef- fect, by the poignancy which it imparts to some emotion ortosomethwarteddesireforbeauty. Disgustwiththe sordid is but another expression of a sensitiveness to the finer thing. There is no perception of beauty without a corresponding disgust. If the price for such artists as James Joyce is exceeding heavy, it is the artist himself who pays, and if Armageddon has taught us anything it should have taught us to abominate the half-truth, and the tellers of the half-truth in literature.
ULYSSES
Incomplete as I write this. His profoundest work,
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most significant--"Exiles" was a side-step, necessary ka- tharsis, clearance of mind from continental contempo- rary thought--"Ulysses," obscure, even obscene, as life itself is obscene in places, but an impassioned meditation on life.
He has done what Flaubert set out to do in "Bouvard and Pecuchet," done it better, more succinct.