Self Condemned

by Lewis, Wyndham

  “Professor Harding’s way of seeing the world is, then, analogous to the Vision of the Saints. But it is not necessarily in any way connected with saintliness. What this system amounts to, in reality, is a taking to its logical conclusion the humane, the tolerant, the fastidious. It is really no more than that with great rigidity and implacability, you pursue these things logically to a point where all that doesn’t belong to them or that contradicts them is absolutely repudiated. But René Harding would say, ‘Why not take these things to their logical conclusion? What is the use of them indeed, if you do not take them to their logical conclusion? They do not exist, they are no more than mere words, until they are logically developed in this way: there is no half-measure in such matters.’

  “This is, of course, all very well: but in life nothing is taken to its ultimate conclusion, life is a half-way house, a place of obligatory compromise; and, in dealing in logical conclusions, a man steps out of life — or so it would be quite legitimate to argue.

  “The questions above attributed to Professor Harding actually occur in his text. But he knows that they are purely rhetorical questions. He knows that they are sensible questions to ask — questions that are asked, from time to time, by men like himself: questions which would be quite otiose were it not for the fact they have a tonic effect, and that the conventional life of men (and of historians) would be even less satisfactory than it is without these uncompromising interveners. He feels that his is a function of authentic value, as a counsellor of perfection, in spite of the fact that it would be quite impossible to convert most historians to his standpoint, as it would mean the end of their careers. Conversions of such scope can only be attained under the threat of torture and death: and René Harding has somewhere admitted that he has put the cart before the horse, and that if he had not been tainted with scepticism he would long ago have given up history, and have attacked those more fundamental obstacles upon which history and everything else depends.

  “In other words, this idealist carries a sceptic on his back. — Figuratively, the concentration camp (and it is not always figurative merely, at that) which awaits the anti-vivisectionist, the pacifist, he who proposes artificial insemination, the vegetarian, the egalitarian, and in fact all those anti-animal eccentrics, is a familiar landmark to this trained historian. I should perhaps say, however, that this implacable perfectionist is, in his personal life, gaily capable of unregenerate behaviour. He must not be visualized as a bloodless and solemn ascetic.”

  René Harding’s head swung slowly round, showing his comically painful grimace of bouffonic reproach to his follower, who was actually slowing down before this occurred, in anticipation of such a reaction upon his master’s part.

  “Yes?” Rotter shot his question at the dumb show staged by René, which he looked at sideways, his head still bent over the typescript. “Anything wrong?”

  “The argumentum ad hominem is justly disapproved of, and I see no reason why the American public should be invited to invade my private life. It does not affect the validity of an argument denouncing the evils of drink if the speaker is himself an alcoholic, though I suppose it would be tactful to do what he could to keep his red nose out of sight.”

  The two friends gazed with their usual cold fondness at one another. In any article he wrote about René’s work, Parkinson invariably, sooner or later, dragged in the historian’s personality: in the first draft, that is, but removed it under indignant pressure when the typescript came to be read, as in the present case.

  Rotter smiled sedately. “I am most apologetic, but in indicating how, in your private life, you fail to discipline … to prune in the way one would expect you to, as a reader of your books, no disrespect was intended. My purpose was to dissipate the idea that you might be some pale little purist. You know how people speculate about the kind of man the author of a book may be, and how, from the standpoint of publicity, they should be prevented from imagining something disenchanting, which in fact is not there.”

  René gave his head a violent shake. “I think the recently introduced habit of thrusting under the public’s nose a publicity photograph of a pretty girl to make them buy Miss So-and-So’s book, if the book is by a male, a portrait as much like a screen star as possible — this is especially done in America — I think this shows that the publishing business is attempting to rival Hollywood in cheapness.” Some such remark was usually made by René, during the discussion which followed the reading of an article, and Parkinson smiled appreciatively as it made its appearance. He sat quite silent.They were smiling at one another if they had been watching, with paternal satisfaction, the parts played by those two accomplished mimes, René Harding and Henry Parkinson.

  “I think those personalities are quite unworthy of you, Rotter.”

  Rotter laughed. “They are deleted. We eschew the personal.”

  “Thank you, Rotter.”

  After this the reading continued. Although Parkinson always read such things to René, the text did not differ enough to escape monotony: Rotter had his formality for teaching René in transatlantic publics. The present article was, however, one of his best efforts. When Rotter’s voice stopped and he put his manuscript down on the table, René stood up and stretched vigorously, and then complimented and thanked his friend with great sincerity, and his friend looked straight at him as if he did not hear what he was saying. Parkinson was one of those Englishmen who is calculated to baffle the men of other nations. His façade was at times forbidding, but his intimates paid no attention to it: they knew it was merely a screen stuck up by this “sensitive,” behind which he could give his feelings play, even if necessary drop a tear.

  Why, in this instance, he looked so strong, was of course for English reasons. He was being praised; what he had written was the object of the most lavish compliments. Now, his writing he took very seriously, and consequently his sensitive nature was most exposed at that point. What is more, the man he almost worshipped was speaking of what he most prized — and, to add to this, René was better qualified than anyone else to judge the value of his writing. So naturally his stoniest and most unresponsive façade was kept stiffly in position.

  But René’s cynical eye, when it rested, upon Rotter, rested gently. All master-and-follower relationships, especially so matured a one as this, have in them something of religion and something of love. The pair are a love pair, and they are god and his dedicated. But when they are an English pair, the lovers are evasive, the devout is sans façon. There was even, at times, a mockery in the Rotter’s eye. He knew he could only love from a position of complete independence: could only be devout with familiarity, and his incense was the reeking smoke of his pipe.

  When the master-follower pair are a literary pair the sacred text is one thing for the master and another thing for the disciple. For the master the whole process of publicity is imbecile, and he is degraded in his own estimation when he thinks of himself squatting down to listen to a solemn exegesis of his literary labour; to be seriously assisting at the building up of a name, at the contriving of a superstition. To arrive, in process of time, at a point when he will be described as “great” necessarily appears to him paltry and absurd, for he has no illusions about the quality of those who are destined to employ this silly epithet.

  Under these circumstances, René would have far preferred not to participate at this particular kind of seance. It was a failure of understanding on good old Rotter’s part to ask him to do so. “He even imagines that I like it,” he once reflected. But he saw quite well that to enjoy the advantages of a kind of minor god, he must not decline to provide the devout with this satisfaction. — But what did he write books for? Partly the pleasure of writing them, but partly in order to attract the absurdities which inevitably ensued. No, he was by no means a perfectionist.

  They moved over together to where the whisky and the glasses were, and made ready a highball, fetching some ice from Rotter’s baby refrigerator. Standing, they talked for a little
about René’s transatlantic plans. It was with exquisite hard-boiledness that Rotter spoke of the departure of his friend. The whole business depressed him so much that it even affected his enthusiasm for his friend’s magnificent rigidity. Then they referred to the article again, and René asked him why he made use of that horrid word “perfectionist.”This suggested a less than perfect taste on Rotter’s part, and the latter for a moment looked disturbed. Then he said, “Why do I employ the word ‘perfectionist’? Well, I realize that it is not a nice word. But I am only a publicity man, and this article of mine is for an American magazine. One must not hold oneself at too great a distance from one’s audience.And I would say Okay or Sez-you if it would help your books.”

  “I know you would, Rotter. I know you would make an absolute hog of yourself. I must forcibly hold you back: you write so much for the American public that in the end you would ruin your style and bristle with the foulest expressions.”

  Did René really mean it, Rotter mused, when he referred to his style in so flattering a way? He could not stop himself — quite idiotically — wondering this. Then, with a slight smile, he told René that he would be on his guard against the insidious requirements of the Yankee public.They filled up their glasses and strolled back to their chairs.

  “Taking the beastly expression seriously for a moment,”

  René said, “I cannot see how you could have mistaken me for a perfectionist.”

  “No?”

  “No. I do not desire perfection in the least. All I suggest is that it is high time that people gave up over-valuing figures neither more nor less noteworthy than a pugilist or a thug. When writing history, hang it all, they should not accept the world’s estimation of what is valuable and important.”

  “But most historians have the minds of a small town bank manager.”

  “Of course, I know that. But there is no occasion to call me a perfectionist because I think it is possible for the historian to approach his material from a somewhat higher level; to transcend the values of the market-place, and to attain to a level which is all over as intelligent as what is, at present, the most intelligent.

  That would not be perfect, Rotter. It need be no higher, for the present, than what would satisfy you and me. Are we perfect?”

  They both laughed. Rotter took up his article and threw it into a waste-paper basket.

  “If you do that, Rotter, I will refrain from comment in future.

  You grow temperamental!”

  Rotter reached down and removed his article from the wastepaper basket. “I have just been asked by a Chicago paper,” he then observed, “to say something about Toynbee’s Study. Oh dear! I am afraid I have to do it.”

  “Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Bless the bed that I lie on.”

  “Yes, I know.” Rotter laughed. “But I should be obliged for a little stimulation.”

  “There is, of course, plenty to say,” the other answered. “His great merit is that he is one of the few people who abhor war.

  But I think it is curious that a man with these unusual scruples should be so little disturbed as he is by all the monstrosities of the past. For him, what is outrageous today is anything but that five hundred or five thousand years ago.

  “One would expect, for instance, this Victorian throwback to bristle the moment he found himself, in his Universal History, confronted by the slave household of the Padishah. But this does not occur. On the contrary, he dwells lovingly upon the Osmanli’s nomadic masterpiece of despotism. He is lyrical about ‘this marvellous system of human cultivation’: and marvels as much at the Mamluks as at the Janissaries. Were he studying a colony of insects this objectivity would be natural: but these were men. One would not offer this criticism if he were a twentieth-century man.”

  “No, he is not that.” Rotter took up a pen and made a note upon a scribbling pad. “Thank you,” he added.

  “Then it occurs to me that the word civilization requires careful definition.”

  “You are speaking of the Study?” Rotter asked.

  “I should have to refer to him again, but it is my impression that he is careless about that. I suggest that you check up on it.”

  “I certainly will.” Rotter made another note.

  “If, for instance, you say that culturally (or as ‘civilization’) Rome is no more than a reflection of Hellas, and that the Empire set up by the Church at Rome was merely a prolongation of the Roman Empire, and that, of course, the civilization of Western Europe remains essentially Graeco-Roman (and that the Roman is Graeco-Roman is superfluous since Rome was a reflection of the Greek civilization) — seen in this way it is a continuous civilization from Pericles to Mr. Attlee. In cataloguing your civilization — and making use only of this very abstract term — alongside the Egyptiac, the Sumeric, the Syriac, the Minoan, and so on you would lump Hellas, Rome, and Western Europe as ‘Hellenic.’ Now this, culturally, leads to extraordinary complications. If what you are studying is the growth, development, and breakdown of civilizations, then there are so many breakdowns between Pericles and Mr. Attlee (or, if you like, Stalin) that it is difficult to think of what you label Hellenic as one thing. To pack Christendom and Hellas into one box would be much easier if you could say that Christianity was just Stoicism: but for bible religion Christianity was mostly Hebraic in temper.

  “‘The labellers’ difficulties are daunting. Since the monkish civilization was Latin, and since the Italian humanists so dramatically put on the market again the literature of Greece and of Rome; since Latin nations are the most intelligent in Europe, and France has dictated culturally to the rest of Europe for a long time now; since Italy was so incredibly creative, you cannot shake off Rome, which was the child of Greece — there is no other label for us except Graeco-Roman or Hellenic, is there?” Rotter scratched his head.

  René nodded. “Yes. It is rather a pity that the Italians flooded northern Europe with their humanism, with Greece and with Rome. Had northern Europe remained Gothic it would have been more logical, wouldn’t it?”

  “I agree with you,” Rotter said. “It would have been more clear-cut. The Old Testament is quite Gothic and would have fitted in very well with the Norse mythology. We then would have had a Norse civilization up here, with Gothic sculpture confronting, across the centuries, the figures of the Parthenon.”

  René laughed. “Anyway, there we are. It is difficult to prevent Mr. Attlee being labelled Hellenic, from the practical standpoint. But the ‘breakdown’ question is another matter. I have often thought how difficult it is. Toynbee, if I remember rightly, made our civilization break down at the Wars of Religion. He considers, therefore, that the Reformation did the trick.”

  “He is not the only one who takes the Reformation for the start of the Great Decline.”

  “But for different reasons,” René observed. “But, outside of dogma, the question of breakdown remains very difficult; and for my part I believe it is today rather meaningless, seeing that we have passed into what is potentially a world culture just as we are moving rapidly to what will be a world society.”

  Rotter gazed approvingly at his master. He reached over and made another note upon his pad.

  “Let us consider the breakdown business, and let us confine ourselves to Great Britain. Let us survey the cultural situation in this country from, say, the sixteenth century, when humanism hit England, down to the present day.”

  “I think I know,” said Rotter pleasurably, “what you are going to do!”

  “Well, it is just worthwhile to run through it,” René said politely. “What we are going to consider is exactly at what point we detect the breakdown signs in our civilization. The Age of Faith and the Gothic art form which accompanied it was not a breakdown, or rather not a step down from what came before it. In the sixteenth century the Renaissance and humanism came to England and jostled about in battle with the Gothic: but, outside of dogma or of race, no one would assert that the Italian Renaissance was inferior to the Gothic. So t
here was no breakdown in the sixteenth century in England. Was there a breakdown in the seventeenth century? But that was the ‘Century of Genius’: it contained Shakespeare and Milton, and Newton, to go no further, and it hardly seems that there was any cultural breakdown there. The eighteenth century, if not so blazing with genius, is the most civilized of any yet. The nineteenth century in England was extraordinarily different from the eighteenth, its materialism leaving no room for the elegant scepticism it superseded. But it was no less civilized. It produced a terrific crop of cultural “highlights”: there was the Darwinian revolution, very great writers like Dickens, great political thinkers, and a crop of first-rate scientists. There was no sign of breakdown there. We fought it on its borders, but we now realize how wonderful a century it was. How about the twentieth century? Are we civilized? The Man of Science would answer that we are even more civilized. Einsteinean physics and the discovery of atomic fission are not suggestive, exactly, of intellectual decay. The revolution in the Fine Arts, the academics describe as decadent, but the artistic pioneers appeal to me, personally, more than do the detractors. As to the social revolutionaries, they do not regard themselves as symptoms of breakdown. Quite the contrary. As the present day ‘West European’ intellectual sees it, there is just as much vitality in his civilization, however you classify it, as there was in Periclean civilization. And one should indicate here a further complication; our most admired artists regard artistic works of the peak period in civilization as inferior to the primitive or so called ‘archaic’ art. The painters Gauguin and Picasso prefer the primitive art of Tahiti or of the Sandwich Islands to that of the High Renaissance, or of fourth-century Athens. Is this still civilization? Or does it at this point break down? Is civilization, when it becomes most civilized, no longer itself, or classifiable as civilization? In other words, we have reached a civilized refinement where civilization is transcended. Now, the point of this review of the centuries, is that I feel that the great generalizers of birth and of breakdown run their abstract lines, arbitrarily, through all kinds of things. If it suited them, the breakdown line would go through the centre of the Century of Genius, or the century before, or indeed anywhere, regardless of the cultural vigour to be met with at that spot.”