Without Prejudice

by Израэль Зангвилл

  [Sidenote: The Artistic Temperament]

  There are two aspects of the artistic temperament-the active or creative side, and the passive or receptive side. It is impossible to possess the power of creation without possessing also the power of appreciation; but it is quite possible to be very susceptible to artistic influences while dowered with little or no faculty of origination. On the one hand is the artist-poet, musician, or painter; on the other, the artistic person to whom the artist appeals. Between the two, in some arts, stands the artistic interpreter-the actor who embodies the aery conceptions of the poet, the violinist or pianist who makes audible the inspirations of the musician. But in so far as this artistic interpreter rises to greatness in his field, in so far he will be found soaring above the middle ground, away from the artistic person, and into the realm of the artist or creator. Joachim and De Reszke, Paderewski and Irving, put something of themselves into their work; apart from the fact that they could all do (in some cases have done) creative work on their own account. So that when the interpreter is worth considering at all, he may be considered in the creative category. Limiting ourselves, then, to these two main varieties of the artistic temperament, the active and the passive, I should say that the latter is an unmixed blessing, and the former a mixed curse.

  What, indeed, can be more delightful than to possess good aesthetic faculties-to be able to enjoy books, music, pictures, plays! This artistic sensibility is the one undoubted advantage of man over other animals, the extra octave in the gamut of life. Most enviable of mankind is the appreciative person, without a scrap of originality? who has every temptation to enjoy, and none to create. He is the idle heir to treasures greater than India's mines can yield; the bee that sucks at every flower, and is not even asked to make honey. For him poets sing, and painters paint, and composers write. "O fortunates nimium" who not seldom yearn for the fatal gift of genius! For this artistic temperament is a curse-a curse that lights on the noblest and best of mankind! From the day of Prometheus to the days of his English laureate it has been a curse

  To vary from the kindly race of men,

  and the eagles have not ceased to peck at the liver of men's benefactors. All great and high art is purchased by suffering-it is not the mechanical product of dexterous craftsmanship. This is one part of the meaning of that mysterious "Master Builder" of Ibsen's. "Then I saw plainly why God had taken my little children from me. It was that I should have nothing else to attach myself to. No such thing as love and happiness, you understand. I was to be only a master builder-nothing else." And the tense strings that give the highest and sweetest notes are most in danger of being overstrung.

  But there are compensations. The creative artist is higher in the scale of existence than the man, as the man is higher than the beatified oyster for whose condition, as Aristotle pointed out, few would be tempted to barter the misery of human existence. The animal has consciousness, man self-consciousness, and the artist over-consciousness. Over-consciousness may be a curse, but, like the primitive curse-labour-there are many who would welcome it!

  [Sidenote: Professional Ethics]

  There's no knowing where the artistic temperament may break out. "I don't think that a person ought to come to the binder and just say to him, 'Bind that book for so much money.' I think the binder ought to say, 'Is the book worth binding?' and that if it were not he ought to refuse." The applications of this remarkable principle, enunciated by a bookbinder, are obvious. Applied universally it would reform the race. The tailor, when a man came to be measured, would say, "Yes, but are you worth measuring?" and if he was out of drawing would refuse to dress him, thus extruding deformity from the world and restoring the Olympian gods. The charwoman, inspired by George Herbert, would not only "sweep a room as by God's laws," but would inquire whether it was worth sweeping; the wine merchant would refuse wine to rich customers who did not deserve to drink it; and the doctors would certainly not devote their best energies to keeping gouty old noblemen alive.

  [Sidenote: Lay Confessors]

  We writers, as Beaeonsfield said to his sovereign, are a good substitute for the confessional; we like to be allowed peeps into the secret chambers of the heart. The most miserable sinners may be as sure of our secrecy as of our absolution. The more terrible the crime the better we are pleased. So come and ease your labouring consciences, and pour your sorrows into our sympathetic shorthand books, and we will work you up the bare material of your lives so artistically that you are the veriest Philistines if you shall not be rather glad to have sinned and suffered. For deep down in our hearts lurks the belief that, as Jerome wittily puts it, "God created the world to give the literary man something to write about!"

  [Sidenote: Q. E. D. Novels]

  A novel, like a metaphor, proves nothing: 'tis merely a vivid pictorial presentation of a single case. I have just read one novel aspiring to prove that a couple who skip the marriage ceremony cannot be happy ever after, and another aspiring to prove that marriage is the one drawback to a happy union. In reality both novels prove the same thing-that the author is a fool. There is nothing I would not undertake to "prove" in a novel. You have only to take an exceptional case and treat it as if it were normal. AEsop's fables could easily be rewritten to prove exactly the opposite morals, just as there is no popular apothegm whose antidote may not be found in the same treasury of folk-wisdom: "Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today," and "Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof"; "Penny wise, pound foolish!" "Look after the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves."

  In sooth I suffer from an inability to see the morals of stories-like the auditor who blunts the point of the drollest anecdote by inquiring "And what happened then?" Even the beautiful allegory of the three rings in "Nathan der Weise," always seems to me to throw considerable discredit on the father who set his sons wrangling over the imitation rings. And, inversely, nothing seems easier to me than to invent fables to prove wrong morals: e.g.

  [Sidenote: The Mouse Who Died]

  A pretty gray mouse was in the habit of sauntering from its hole every evening to pick up the Crumbs in the Dining Boom. "What a pretty Mouse!" said the Householder, and made more crumbs for Mousie to eat. So great a banquet was thus spread that the Noble-hearted little Mouse cheeped the news to its Sisters and its Cousins and its Aunts, and they all came every evening in the Train of its Tail to regale themselves on the remains of the Repast. "Dear, dear!" cried the Householder in despair, "the house is overrun with a plague of Vermin." And he mixed poison with the crumbs, and the poor little pioneer Mouse perished in contortions of agony. Moral: Don't.

  [Sidenote: Theologic Novels]

  Usually the speculations that first reach the great public through the medium of the novel have been familiar ad nauseam to the reading classes for scores of years. Conceive Noah, aroused by the grating of the Ark upon the summit of Mount Ararat, looking out of the window and exclaiming, "Why, it's been raining!" Then imagine Mrs. Noah, catching an odd syllable of her husband's remark, writing a love story to prove that the barometer portended showers. Finally, picture the world looking in alarm for its umbrella, and you have an image of the inception and effect of the modern Mrs. Noah's theologic novel.

  MUDIE MEASURE.

  Ten lines make one page;

  Ten pages make one point;

  Two points make one chapter;

  Five chapters make one episode;

  Two episodes make one volume:

  Three volumes make one tired.

  [Sidenote: The Prop of Letters]

  Is it a bright or a black day for an author when he gets so popular that the big advertisers insist on having him in any organ in which they place their advertisements? There can be no question but that it will be a black day for letters when the advertiser becomes the arbiter of literature, as this newest development forebodes. Where is this leprosy of advertisement to stop? Already it covers almost our whole civilisation. Already the advertiser is a main prop of the press.

/>   A SONG OF ADVERTISEMENTS. (After Whitman.)

  Give me Hornihand's Pure Mustard;

  Give me Apple's Soap, with the negress laving the cherub;

  Give me Bentley's Brimstone Tablets, and Ploughman's

  Pills-those of the Little Liver.

  (0 get me ads., you agent with the frock-coat and the fountain pen,

  You with the large commissions

  And the further discount on cash,

  Get me ads., camarado!

  Full pages preferred, though little ones not scorning,

  For I scorn nothing, my brother.)

  Give me the Alphabetical Snuff;

  Give me Electric Batteries and False Teeth; also the Tooth-powders;

  Give me all the Soft Soaps and the Soothing Syrups;

  Give me all the Cocoas and Cough Lozenges and Corsets;

  Give me Infants' Food-yea, the diet of babes and sucklings;

  Give me the Nibs and the Beef Essences, and do not forget the

  Typewriters.

  (Forget nothing, camarado, for I, the poet, never forget

  anything.)

  Give me of the Fat of your agency, and of the Anti-Fat thereof!

  And I will build you magazines, high-class and well illustrated;

  Or pictureless a volonte, the latter with heavier articles.

  Also newspapers, daily and weekly, with posters flamboyant,

  That shall move the state and its pillars,

  That shall preach the loftiest morals, elevating the masses,

  By the strength of advertisements,

  By the mighty strength of advertisements!

  It has been suggested that flypapers should be so sprinkled as to produce an aesthetic design in dead flies, so as to introduce beauty into the homes of the poor. It would be more in harmony with the age to lay out our public gardens with floral injunctions to use B's hair-dye and C's corn-plaster. Brag and display are the road to riches, and the trail of vulgarity is over it all. I take credit to myself for having been among the first to cry in the wilderness; but the critics-bless them!-say it is all empty paradox.

  [Sidenote: The Latter-day Poet]

  The one exception to the hunger for advertisement is the modern bard. He achieves his vogue by limited editions, and takes pains to prevent himself being an influence. He acquires a factitious fame and an artificial value by printing only a few copies, thus making his paper and print sought after rather than his matter. It is all very well for a book to become rare by the vicissitudes of literary fortune, but this machine-made rarity can only be prized by people who value their possessions merely because other people haven't got them. The old minor poet was frenzied and unbought; the new is calm and "collected." At this rate the greatest poets would be those of whose works only one copy is extant-in MS.

  Bend, bend the knee, and bow the head

  To reverence the great unread,

  The great unread and much-reviewed,

  Whose lines are treasured like the lewd,

  His first editions prizes reckoned

  Because there never was a second.

  Obscurely famous in his rut,

  Unknown, unpopular, "uncut,"

  Where Byron thrilled a continent,

  To thrill an auction-room content,

  He struggles through oblivion's bogs,

  To gain a place in-catalogues!

  And falls asleep and joins the dust

  In simple hope and modest trust

  That, though Posterity neglect

  His bones, his books it will collect,

  And these will grow-O prospect fair!-

  From year to year more "scarce" and "rare."

  [Sidenote: An Attack of Alliteration]

  Have you noticed the Renaissance of alliteration in the new journalism? The early English Poets made alliteration the chief element of their poetry, and in modern times Swinburne has paid more attention to it (and to rhyme) than to meaning, with the result that there has arisen a school of poets who don't mean anything-and say it. In the olden days, a bride was bonny, and was requested to busk herself in consequence; all of which was intelligible. Nowadays, the poet would call a basilisk bonny rather than miss his alliteration. Is it because the new journalism is so imaginative and emotional that it throws off alliterative phrases as naturally and unconsciously as Whittier confesses he did in writing "The Wreck of Rivermouth"? It is sometimes difficult to believe that providence is not on the side of the evening bills. When Balmaceda died he committed Suicide by Shooting himself in Santiago-of all places in the world. Boulanger, if from a local point of view he died less satisfactorily, was yet careful to employ a Bullet. It is for the sake of the phrase-makers that Burglars good-naturedly prefer Bermondsey, and that Tigers do not escape from their cages to play in Tragedies till the show arrives at Tewkesbury. The Baboon is already so largely alliterative in himself that it was an excess of generosity that made one recently attack an infant under such circumstances as to allow the report to be headed, "Baby Bitten by a Baboon in a Backyard at Bow." Alliteration has become a mighty factor in politics: it is fast replacing epigram, while its effects on moral character are tremendous. That "hardened criminal," Mr. Balfour, might have been a good man instead of a "base brutal bully," if his name had only commenced with an X. He is a noteworthy martyr to the mania of the times. I am convinced that the Death of the Duke of Devonshire was accelerated by anxiety to please the sub-editors, and it is a source of real regret to me to reflect that my own death can afford them no supplementary gratification of this nature.

  [Sidenote: The Humorous]

  To start anything exclusively funny is a serious mistake. This was why poor Henry J. Byron's "Mirth" was so short-lived. It died of laughing. A friend of mine, with a hopeless passion for psychological analysis, says that the reason people do not laugh over comic papers is that the element of the unexpected is wanting. This, he claims, is the essence of the comic. You laugh over a humorous remark in the middle of a serious essay, over a witty epigram flashed upon a grave conversation, over the slipping into the gutter of a ponderous gentleman-it is the shock of contrast, the flash of surprise, that tickles. Now this explanation of why people do not laugh over comic papers is obviously wrong, because you are surprised when you see a joke in a comic paper; at the same time, it contains an element of truth. The books which gain a reputation for brilliance are those which are witty at wide intervals; the writer who scintillates steadily stands in his own light.

  [Sidenote: The Discount Farce]

  Having started your magazine, you will begin humorously enough by affixing a mock price to it. What a strange world of make-believe it is! We are so habituated to shams that we cannot help shamming even where there is nothing to be gained by it. Why is music published at four shillings when you can buy it for one and four, or at most one and eight? Why are novels published at thirty-one and six and the magazines at a shilling? "Shilling shockers" are sold at ninepence, which is as comical as selling "tenpenny nails" at sixpence. The same principle rules in other trades. It almost seems as if there is an ineradicable instinct in humanity for getting things below their price, even if at more than their value. Hence the marked popularity of "sales" and "reductions." The idea of getting things cheap reconciles one to getting things one doesn't want. The craze for cheap things leads one into frightful extravagance. In some shops the weakness of humanity is pandered to without disguise, and every article is ticketed with a little card, from which the first price is carefully ruled out, and even on the second price you get a discount for cash. This same discount for cash is at least intelligible, but business men are painfully familiar with another wonderful deduction. After you wait months for your money, you get a cheque less "discount on payment." This seems to involve an exasperating Hibernicism. "On payment," forsooth! So long as it remains unpaid, the debt due to you is, say, one hundred pounds. But the moment you really get it, it shrinks to ninety-five. Why not call it ninety-five at the start and be done with it? But,
no! men will not give up the subtle pleasure of discounts, ineffably childish though it be. The rather deaf lady who being asked six shillings a yard for stuff replied "Sixteen shillings a yard! I'll give you eleven," and who, when her mistake was pointed out, said "I couldn't think of paying more than four and sixpence" was a genuine type of the population of these islands.

  [Sidenote: The Franchise Farce]

  One American defense of bribery is as clever as it is cynical. It amounts to this: that universal suffrage is such a peril to the commonweal that having been given prematurely, it must insidiously be nullified in practice, even at the cost of universal corruption; in short, if the old society is to be preserved, universal franchise must be transformed into universal corruption. What an ironic commentary on the constitution that was founded by George Washington, who couldn't tell a lie! The honour of America, it appears, "rooted in dishonour" stands, and "faith unfaithful" makes its politicians falsely true. When one remembers some of the other gigantic evils of the society thus conserved by corruption, when one thinks of the great immoral capitalists, playing their game regardless of whom they ruin or whom they enrich, when one thinks of the squalid slums of the great cities, one wonders whether the society which these things shadow were not better damned. It were cleaner, at any rate, to abolish universal franchise than to flaunt this farce in the eyes of Europe. If universal suffrage was a mistake, if indeed the gift of the franchise does not develop a man's conscience and education-and certainly bribery is not the way to give him a chance of such development-then why not honestly admit that America has made this mistake, that the ideals of the Pilgrim Fathers were inferior to Tammany Hall's, and that even the negro is not a man and a brother?