The Philistine: a periodical for curious persons (Vol. II, No. 6, May 1896)

The province of Art is not to present a specific message, but to impart a feeling. If we go home from the Lyceum hushed, treading on air, we have heard Oratory, even though we cannot recall a single sentence; and if we read a poem that brings the unbidden tears and makes the room seem a sacred chancel, we have read Literature. The Master has imparted to our spirits a tithe of his own sublimity of soul.

For the good old ladies who prick the Bible for a message I have a profound sympathy: the Sacred Page fits man’s every mood, and this is why it is immortal. That which is clear is ephemeral. Symbolism requires interpreters, and lo! colleges spring up with no other intent than to train men to explain a Book; for the Saviours of the world all speak in parables. They see the significance of Things and voice a various language. The interpreter makes the symbolist immortal, and the symbolist makes the fame of the interpreter. If Turner had been “clear,” Ruskin might still be Assistant Professor. All Holy Writ from Moses to Whitman is mystical. The writer has breathed into its nostrils the breath of life, that impalpable, elusive Something which we forever seek and which forever escapes us.

Of course, I would not have a writer endeavor to be mystical—this would be positively base; but I would have each man who feels that he has something to say express himself in his own way, without let, hindrance, or injunction from writers on rhetoric, who having never produced anything to speak of themselves, yet are willing for jingling coin to show others how.

III.

“What do you do when you are preaching and can’t think of anything to say?” asked a Fledgeling of his pastor.

“I just holler,” was the answer of the experienced Exhorter.

With half a million preachers in the United States, with families to keep on an average salary of five hundred dollars, I do not blame them for “hollerin’;” neither do I censure editors who have to fill three columns each day if they often “holler;” as an economist I might advise a man to “holler,” but as a lover of literature I cannot conscientiously do so.

I have a clerical friend who, being much before the public, is often called upon unexpectedly to reduce moral calculi. Being a man of force, and not a man of power, he never says, “I do not know,” but always boldly faces the problem after this manner: “My friends, this subject naturally divides itself under three heads: firstly,”... Here he states some general commonplace for the first head, and casts about in his mind for the other two; having secured them, he launches forth with much emphasis on some other theme and carries all before him. His swashing and marshal manner makes him everywhere a great success; he is considered one of the most powerful men in his denomination.

And I am fully convinced that a painstaking show of system is one of the first essentials in making a favorable impression. We are like the Hebrew salesman who called on a firm who occupied a sixth floor and who, on starting to show his samples, was promptly kicked down stairs; having arrived at the first landing a second man took him in hand and kicked him one flight further; this was continued until his battered form reached the sidewalk, when he picked himself up and admiringly exclaimed, “Mein Gott! vot a system!” So when a rhetorician flashes his “heads” and “divisions” and syllogisms and analyses and figures (that do not lie) upon us, we are so lost in bedazzled admiration that we can only lift up our hands and say, “My God! what a system!”

Good work never comes from the effort to be “clear” or “forceful” or “elegant.” Clear to whom, forsooth? and as for force, it has no more place in letters than has speed.

Power in Art there surely is, but power is quite a different thing from force. Power is that quality by which change is wrought; it means potentiality, potency. The artist uses only a fraction of his power, and works his changes by the powder that he never explodes; while force means movement, action, exertion, violence, compulsion.

Literature is largely the result of feeling. The “hustler” is a man of force; very, very seldom is he a man of power; still rarer is it that he is a man of feeling. The very idea of force precludes tender sensibility and delicate emotion. If I should write on a scrap of paper, “Hate is death, but love is life,” and drop the slip into the street, there might be power in the words, but surely there is no force.

And as for elegance, let him who attempts it leave all hope behind; he is already damned. The elegance of an act must spring unconsciously from the gracious soul within. There is no formula.

In letters, “clearness” should be left to the maker of directories, “force” to the auctioneer, and “elegance” to the young man who presides at the button counter. Were I an instructor in a Commercial College, I might advise that in business correspondence there should be clearness and force and elegance; but if I were a Professor of Literature and Oratory, I would not smother inspiration in a formula. I would say, Cultivate the heart and intellect, and allow nature to do the rest. For while it is still a mooted question whether a man’s offspring after the flesh are heirs to his mental and spiritual qualities, it is very sure that the children of his brain are partakers in whatsoever virtue that his soul possesses.

The teacher who teaches best is not he who insists on our memorizing rules, but he who produces in the pupil a pleasurable animation. We learn only in times of joy and in times of grief. The teacher who can give his pupils pleasure in their work shall be crowned with laurel, but grief—grief is the unwelcome gift of the gods alone!

Let the writer have a clear conception and then express it so it is at the moment clear to his Other-Self—that Self that looks on over the shoulder of every man, endorsing or censuring his every act and thought and deed. The highest reward of good work consists in the approbation of this Other-Self, and in that alone; even though the world flouts it all, you have not failed. “I know what pleasure is,” said Stevenson, “for I have done good work.”

ELBERT HUBBARD.

A SONNET OF HOPE.

I said unto my heart: take courage, friend! No hurt can hurt thee save thyself alone: Thy only brother’s breast may change to stone, Thy soul’s companion turn, thy core to rend; Earth’s utmost space no cheering word may send, But only Darkness make a bitter moan Till naught, save Death, may seem to be thine own, Naught left for thee to love—naught to defend. Yet, O my heart! fear not thy challenger Nor quail to meet the blackest packs of Night, Whether on flowery mead or rocky hill: Rouse thou my blood and bid my pulses stir To match the Lilliputians’ sapless might With the steel armor of the unconquered Will!

JOHN JEROME ROONEY.

SHAKSPEARE’S BORROWINGS.

An English student of Italian literature has been at great pains to investigate Mr. William Shakspeare’s indebtedness for his plots and backgrounds to the Italian novelists. He publishes the result of his studies in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, and it is an article all students of literature will want to read. It reveals the fine audacity of Mr. Shakspeare, and shows how the world of readers gains when great genius takes its own where it finds it.

These Italian novelists were fine workmen, and ingenious story tellers, but Shakspeare clothed their creations in the flesh and blood of perennial humanity. They made the puppets of passion, true to the fashions and humors of their day, and invaluable as such; Shakspeare took them and gave them that philosophy and humanity that rings true through all the changes of custom, and knowledge and philosophy.

These writers had the faculty of invention, of incident and situation, and dramatic movement and climax. Shakspeare may have really lacked these ingenious faculties of mind, but yet he had the dramatic perception of life—the whole of life, quick and stirring, all emotion and thought and passion. In his day the play was the thing in England, and he needed a strong current of human action to show the soul of life on the stage as he saw it in the commonplaces of everyday existence. So he borrowed from the Italians, who supplied him with the very plots he needed to develop his own philosophy of life, in a fashion that gave thought its real place in life, as a concrete force on a level with action.

If the novel had been established in England earlier, if the English writers had borrowed the form of the novel from the Italians bodily, instead of their plots, Shakspeare might have been our psychological novelist; for it seems that his dramatic power was of the deeper sort that seizes the heart and soul of life, rather than that which devises effective scenes and climaxes. That is, if this English writer is to be trusted, and he seems to write with authority. He says _Cymbeline_ and _All’s Well That Ends Well_ were taken from Boccaccio’s _Decameron_, _The Merchant of Venice_ and _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ from Florentino’s _Pecarone_, _Romeo and Juliet_, _Much Ado about Nothing_, _Two Gentlemen of Verona_ and _Twelfth Night_ from Bandello, and _Measure for Measure_ and _Othello_ from Giraldi’s _Ecatommiti_.

If any contemporary writer put himself in such indebtedness the critics would probably howl. And yet the richest imaginations, the most fantastic fancy, the keenest wit and widest comprehension of human nature and life is often given to a writer who is destitute of the mere dramatic knack of improvising a story to carry on the frame of life as he knows and sees it.

Half our so-called creative and imaginative writers of today are merely ingenious plot and puppet makers, with no real gift of creation or imagination at all. The exceptions in English are Meredith, Hardy, Zangwill, Gissing and a baker’s dozen or so others. The man of real imaginative gifts, and the philosophic insight that invariably accompanies them, is seldom recognized in his true office and capacity; for he so often lacks the melodramatic and theatrical ingenuity, that perverts the course of human destiny for mere effectiveness. Since the deeper things of existence are usually excluded from fiction it is ten to one he is writing criticism or essays, and is thought to be prosy and dull by the majority of readers, to whom imaginative writing means simply the romance of abducted duchesses and bloody encounters by moonlight. But creation, as Emerson pointed out long ago, is _insight_.

A gory era is at this hour upon us. Let us hope that the true imaginative literature of insight, philosophy, poetry and analysis of character will yet emerge, when Ibsen and Maeterlinck and Sudermann and the rest are relieved by process of time of the stigma attached to all original observers, thinkers and innovators.

Shakespeare, if he were alive today, would be in the forefront of this new movement for freedom in literature, and he would steal right and left from Science!

WALTER BLACKBURN HARTE.

AN HOUR WITH CÆSAR AUGUSTUS.

Ah! I am late this morning. I can feel in the air the vibration of the third hour. Attius! Attius! I suppose he thinks that having lain so long, I may as well wait till tomorrow. Ah! Attius, have you, too, overslept yourself? No more dinners with Maecenas: we are getting too old for them. It is the third hour; I will rise. But first request Livia Augusta to favor me with her presence. Dear old Attius! that little trick of telling him the hour never fails. Now for my daily bargain with the august.

Madam, good morning; leave us, Attius. And how is the irreproachable? Judging from her roses, better than her lacy deputy. I spare you the econium of Maecenas’ wine. I saw last night a girl named Candidia; do you know who she is? Oh, the old senator’s daughter? Not much like him; I should have said our late friend, Mark Antony, was a friend of the family. You know that? I thought she had a trick of him, and I don’t often make that sort of mistake. She’s a very fine young woman, the white Cantonia. I suppose you know all about her; is she desirous of influence at Court? H’m! Thanks; I trust you to awake her to the legitimate ambition of a Roman beauty. I wish, Incomparable, you’d find a Maecenas to renasce Roman women. When Candidia stands up you can see she is standing on her legs, and, except a certain perennial of mine, I can’t say as much for any woman else in Rome. Will you see about it? Thanks, kindest of Junos.

Now, another matter. You must see by now, Livia, that it’s impossible for me to let Tiberius go on any longer as he’s doing. You must let me send him away. Yes, yes; I know all you’ve done for me, but it doesn’t justify your son in studied insolence. After all I’m supposed to be Proconsul and Pontiff and Augustus, and all that, and I can’t let him do it. Claudian pride? Well, I can only say that there’s no vacancy for Claudian pride in Rome just at present. Eh? What has Candidia to do with Tiberius? Oh, I see; you want to bargain. Very well, Candidia for Tiberius—only on these conditions. First, you must talk to him seriously about his demeanor—not as coming from me, you understand. Secondly, I put him on the list for foreign service. Oh, yes, you can make your mind easy. He shall have a big war, and a triumph, and all the fandangles. Also, I’ll throw in Agrippa; he shall go abroad and have no triumph, and I’ll try to keep Julia quiet. I’m a generous Jove—eh, Junicula? Give me a kiss, old wench. We’ve had some battering times together, eh? And if I’m not mistaken you’ve still something to hold your back straight on, eh? Eh? Eh? Adieu, my Empress. Send in Cleobulus, will you? And don’t forget Candidia—H’m.

My excellent spouse was pleased with my little attentions. Also she was pleased with the idea of her Tiberius in high command; she doesn’t yet understand the value of interior lines in politics, my Augusta. I suppose she foresees her Tiberius crossing the Rubicon while we all sit tremulous in East Aurora—ha, ha! And yet she’s seen the Praetorians at drill every day these many years. Naturalists have greatly neglected women.

Now, Cleobulus, my wig and my eye-brightening stuff. I always assume you don’t give away these secrets of the toilet, Cleobulus. If you do, the next wig will be the scalp of one Cleobulus, mysteriously disappeared. Now the gown. Not that, you nincompoop of genius. How often must I tell you I’m only plain Proconsul? That will do: now announce me at the levee. I wonder who’s here today. I’m glad the Roman Senators haven’t the political insight of that hair-dresser.

Attius, precede me into the ante-chamber, while I have a look at the company. Gods, what an air the rogue has with him, and how very right he is, considering the way they grovel to him. A poor set of curs, I’m afraid, these nobles at Rome; yet I’m afraid I like them.

Good day, gentlemen, I fear I have ill repaid this courteous attention by keeping you so long awaiting. Ah, Isauricus, my dear old friend, this is too kind. Too kind; it is I that should be calling on you; you must not expose yourself to this morning air; all Rome is waiting for your speech on this new Land Bill or Agrippa’s. By the way, Egnatius, I do not think you have yet taken the public into confidence as to your attitude? You reserve it? Ha! I am not sure you are right, if I may say so. One loses a great part of one’s due influence, I always think, unless one gives an opinion time to percolate, as one might say. I have told Agrippa frankly all along that I shall oppose him on the municipal clauses. What says Piso? Opposed to the whole scheme; you will speak, of course?

Aha, good day, Iulus. What says Iulus on the question of the hour? An excellent measure all around! So—well, it should be an interesting debate, and personally I am still open to be convinced. And here is the author of all the trouble, himself. How do you do, Agrippa? Eh? A word in private; by all means, old man. Want to go away? No, no, dear fellow, we want you here. Pannonia and Germany? Nonsense, you’re losing your nerve. Why, we settled the Pannonians years ago. Well, we’ll think it over.

Good morning, Maecenas; survived your own wine, I see! Amusing fellow, that little Horace of yours. Underbred? No, I didn’t notice it. I tell you what, though, if I were that man I wouldn’t stand the way you treat him for five minutes, good as your dinners are. However, that’s his affair. Been here long? I’m beginning to agree with you about Iulus. See me before dinner.

Well, gentlemen, I thank you once more for the high honor you have paid me. I am afraid you spoil me with your indulgence, for I am now about to ask to be excused. You have put me in an important public position, and I am anxious not to disappoint you. Adieu, my friends.

H’m. To-day’s hypocrisy over. Not that it is, though, for I have to play the hypocrite one way and another every minute of my life. I’m beginning to think it’s a mistake to be a tyrant. It’s exciting enough when you have to fight for it; but when you’ve got it, decidedly a bore. And unluckily the posing isn’t the worst of it; the worst of it is that you have to suppress so many good fellows. Now I know Egnatius is guilty of the impiety of not seeing why he should do what I please any more than I should do what he pleases. I must get rid of him; I can’t help myself. Such a witty, astute fellow, too, and what a boxer! Iulus I must get rid of, too. I fancy Maecenas has got his own reasons for wanting Iulus out of the way; still he is his father’s son, and never quite safe. A man I’ve known since they first put me into the long gown. No, I sha’n’t get rid of Iulus; he can go to Gyarus if Maecenas likes. No, dam it, why Gyarus? He won’t do any harm at Rhodes, and at least he can get a dinner there. Poor old Iulus! And poor old Agrippa! I suppose he wants to go away because, he can’t stand Julia any more. I should never mind that sort of scandal myself, but some do. Perhaps I was to blame in giving him Julia at all, knowing her character. But she had to marry somebody and that somebody could be none else than Agrippa. Such is statesmanship! Now the poor old boy wants to go back to his soldiers. But I can’t do it. Once he gets to Pannonia, he’d forget his obedience—and he is most astonishingly obedient—and go for the chiefs. His loyalty’s splendid, but I can’t trust even it, when the old war-horse sees the enemy in front of him. And the worst of it is that the chiefs ought to be smashed this summer, and no man in the world could do it as well as Agrippa. It would be all over in a month. But Pannonia’s got to be nursed, for Pannonia’s to be a big thing, and Tiberius is to get his triumph for it, sulky dog. Yet he’s got the stuff in him, too. I suppose I’d better make up some reason to send Agrippa to Gaul again: Livia can’t object to him there. After all, the real devil of it isn’t being a tyrant, but being a married tyrant. There isn’t an easier or pleasanter thing in the whole world than to go on as I’m doing now, and keep my place to the end, and my friends into the bargain. It’s this cursed dynasty business, and that cursed woman—though she’s behaved a deuced deal better to me than I deserved. But why in the name of all the gods at once must I turn out my oldest friend to die miserable in Gaul? Why, to make the way easy for a moody young prig that I dislike—and who hates me. What do I get for it all? Candidia! That’s what it comes to, when you work it out. I’m monarch of the world, and the gain of it is that I have unequaled chances of making a ridiculous goddam goat of myself. I wish to Heaven I’d had my uncle’s pluck: then I should have been cut to pieces ten years ago. Still after all, Agrippa’s going to Gaul would be away out of the Land Bill business, and I begin to think I went too far in the matter. Yes: he had better go.