Complete Works of Isaac Rosenberg

by Isaac Rosenberg

  A door knocker is the symbol of an unfinished civilization and an aloof and unassertive aristocracy. Its imperiousness is unquestioning, its meek acquiescence to convention a record of the sham of custom. It is the signpost of politeness and the negative to precipitate familiarity. It is a proof of the decay of religion, for it shows our want of faith in man, and consequently of the God in man. What forces are set in motion by it? In our family alone (there are no servants) its summons is generally the signal whereby the entire faculties of the junior members are exerted in tremendous efforts to ignore and despise its imperiousness. Ah! what a type then of power desolate! of man beating at the doors of knowledge and clamouring vainly at the gates of the unseen. And in repose, what a sense of infinite patience and a world of energy lying dormant — useless, like genius when the circumstances to bring it into light are wanting. It is kissed by the sun and rain, by day and by night, and endures the frost and thunder with supreme immovable dignity.

  The comparative insignificance of the knocker lies in the fact of its functions being so startlingly obtrusive that the cause itself is obscured; an important contrast to the chimney pot in this. The chimney pot glares at you — fixes you. It is the last stage, the final result of a series of causes that only minister to its service; whereas the knocker is the beginning — the cause of a certain result. It is the touchstone of character. How timidly the timid use it? How impetuously the impetuous? How gently the gentle-hearted? Before the knocker all self-consciousness is abandoned and the natural and spontaneous is brought into play. It is a type of prostitution, for it is sold to all men; of helplessness, for it lies where all can wreak their will on it; of power, for it sets great forces in motion; of aristocracy, for it is lordly and imperious; of democracy, for it makes no distinction between low and high; of wealth, for like gold, it is the means of opening doors at its magic touch. It is the link of fraternity whereby so many of divergent aims and minds touch hands. Sometimes knockers are peculiarly identified with the families of the houses to which they are attached, and the fate and fortune of the knocker is the fate and fortune of the family. In one family I know, whose reverses and ill fortune were something miraculous, the knocker invariably found its way behind the door, and the only disposition it ever showed to knock when it was in its place was to fall and knock the head off of a millionaire relation, who had just discovered them, and they were obliged to pay for his funeral. In another, the knocker was the cause of suicide. A friend of mine of aesthetic tastes, visiting his affianced, took prejudice to the knocker, because of its exceedingly ugly shape, and so fastidious was he that he would not knock; but finding the door open, and being of that passionate precipitate nature that despises convention, rushed in, and conceive his horror when he beheld his beloved in the embrace of a man (it happened to be her long lost brother just returned), and, infuriated, he dashed out and went straight to the river (not even stopping to pick up his hat), and there ended his sorrows...

  A knocker is so enchantingly romantic and real; so human in its pathetic helplessness; so divine in its terrible significance of power, that we might sum up in it the epitome of humanity. Man, with his vast power over destiny, yet controlled by destiny. Man, with death in his hands yet in the hands of death. Power that is powerless. Sleeping mechanism that is ready to leap and crash at a touch.

  Thus far we have seen the knocker as a symbol of general tendencies and vitalities of the present, and an important factor in the lives and destinies of individuals. Let us see in it a prophetic far-reaching symbol of the religion of the future. The only serious drawback is its variety of type; but this of course, would depend on the aesthetic leanings and fashions of the future generation. When we consider that the symbol of the Christian religion was erstwhile a sign of degradation, a gallows; how idealism has converted this type of human degradation into a symbol of divine beatific sanctity, does it need a great wrench of credulity to believe that a door knocker, which has so tremendous a significance, and is so much more infinitely romantic in form, might take its place and stand for the new religion. When culture has completed its emancipation from barbarism, and Christianity with its limitations, its self-sacrifice, its strange mendicant idealisation of poverty, its crown and banner of austere primitive barbarism the cross has become a thing that has been; and a religion, generous, large in its conception of humanity, refined yet homely, usurp the vacated throne; the door knocker its sceptre.

  February 1911

  RUDOLPH

  Poor Rudolph! He was an artist and a dreamer — that is, one whose delight in the beauty of life was an effective obstacle to the achievement of the joy of living; whose desire to refine and elevate mankind seemed to breed in mankind a reciprocal desire to elevate him to a higher and still higher — garret. Though a nearer view of heaven and though a poet, he would have preferred a less lofty dwelling place to preserve, what he facetiously termed his ancestor’s remains, from the chill November weather — but so it was. In this garret, in the dim waning light God could see day by day the titanic wrestlings of genius against the exigencies of circumstances, the throbbings of a sensitive organism, touched to emotion at the subtlest changes on the face of nature; the keen delight simply in endeavour, the worship and awe of genius before the altar of genius. But day after day of unrequited endeavour, of struggle and privation, brought depression, and in the heaviness of his spirit the futility of existence was made manifest to him. Often inspiration was dead within, and all his aspirations and ideals seemed to mock at his hollow yearning. In his social and spiritual isolation, in his utter desolation he felt as if he was God’s castaway, out of harmony with the universe, a blot upon the scheme of humanity. Life appeared so chaotic, so haphazard, so apathetic — O! it was miserable. He — a spark struck from God’s anvil, he — who could clasp the Heavens with his spirit — to whom Beauty had revealed herself in all her radiance — and to what end? What purpose was there in such wasted striving — and supposing success did come would it be sufficient recompense for the wasted life and youth, the starved years — the hopelessness of the barren Now?

  In one of these moods he strayed to the National Gallery. It was Students’ Day, and he wandered round without being able to concentrate himself on his old loves and longings, till at length he sat down on a seat brooding and revolving ‘the fragments of the broken years.. He was awakened from his reverie by hearing a feminine voice saying ‘O! please don’t rise, oblige me.’ He looked up and saw a lady at an easel gazing intently at him and painting.

  ‘I am painting the interior and you just happen to fit in well, I won’t be many minutes,’ she called out to him.

  ‘O! certainly,’ murmured Rudolph, ‘as long as you like.’ She was a pleasant faced lady of about thirty five, rosy and buoyant, and he wondered what her work would be like. He thought what a strange thing Art was, life was. Around were the masters, to whom Art was life, and life meant Art. Here were the dilettanti to whom Art was a necessity as an alternative to the boredom of doing nothing; an important item in the ingredients that go to make up culture.

  She was soon finished and asked Rudolph to see it, which he accordingly did, and was and expressed himself greatly struck by the result.

  ‘Dutch in idea and influence and yet exceedingly modern’ he told her. She assented, and then in a tone of defiant confession ‘Do you know I thank Van Eyck the greatest artist that ever lived. I adore him because he makes the commonplace so delightfully precious.’

  ‘I think a picture should be something more’ protested Rudolph. ‘Van Eyck is interesting to me just as a pool reflecting the clouds is interesting, or a landscape seen through a mirror. But it is only a faithful transcript of what we see. My ideal of a picture is to paint what we cannot see. To create, to imagine. To make tangible and real a figment of the brain. To transport the spectator into other worlds where beauty is the only reality. Rossetti is my ideal.’

  She smiled, amused at his enthusiasm.

  ‘But why go out of the w
orld for beauty when we can find beauty in it?’

  ‘I admit an artist with imagination might make a most exquisite picture out of what may seem most uncompromising in nature. But it is his imagination, his refinement of sentiment, that only uses the object itself as a basis to give expression to his vision. Why then were we given the creative faculty? What, if not this, is the meaning of God?’

  The lady laughed. ‘I have a nephew who used to think like you, until he saw Degas, and now he raves over the beauty of ugliness. He said to me, “We are all idealists when we are young. We begin in the clouds and as we are slipping away from existence we come nearer to existence in thought and feeling. We are born with wings but we find our feet are safest.” Perhaps you have heard of him, Leonard Harris, the poet.’

  ‘Leonard Harris! he could never have said that,’ incredulously exclaimed Rudolph, and added: ‘Though the expression sounds his. Surely Heaven hasn’t got too bright for him.’

  ‘Anyway that’s how he talks now. Do you know him?’ she asked.

  ‘No, but I should very much like to,’ he replied eagerly.

  ‘Well, I shall talk to him about you. Are you an artist?’ she questioned. ‘You certainly have the artistic spirit.’

  ‘I am unfortunately.’

  ‘Why unfortunately? It is a golden gift.’

  ‘A golden gift; but I could not exchange it for a pair of shoe laces if I wanted to. Unless one has the golden means the gift is only one of misery.’

  ‘You are young to be a pessimist.’

  ‘I am not old enough to be an optimist. When I will have experienced occasion for optimism I will be one.’

  She looked concerned. ‘Dear dear, you are young to talk like that. I think that if one has the golden means, and everything made smooth for him, one does not try so much; that is why the geniuses are always those who have had great difficulties to contend against.’

  He smiled bitterly. ‘When one has to think of responsibilities, when one has to think strenuously how to manage to subsist, so much thought, so much energy is necessarily taken from creative work. It might widen experience and develop a precocious mental maturity, of thought and worldliness, it might even make one’s work more poignant and intense, but I am sure the final result is loss, technical incompleteness, morbidness and the evidence of tumult and conflict.’

  ‘Well, it may be so,’ she admitted half doubtingly. ‘But you must see my nephew on those matters. I will talk to him and leave you his address in case you’d care to write to him.’

  ‘I’d write this moment. I too am a poet.’

  ‘Yes! How nice. Well, send your poems. I myself am not very poetical in my tastes. In any case you’ll hear from me, as I cannot let a sinner so young go on sinning,’ she said smilingly as she bade him goodbye.

  ‘Then I shall owe my good fortune to my wickedness. The way of the world, Madam.’

  Some time after this Rudolph received a letter from Leonard Harris, to whom he had sent his poems, inviting him to dine with him the following evening. Rudolph immediately wrote back accepting the invitation, and in the elation caused by the turn fortune seemed to be taking with him, rushed off to communicate the wonderful intelligence to a friend.

  ‘And you’ve accepted the invitation?’ his friend asked sceptically.

  Rudolph looked at him. ‘Why — I never waited to finish reading the letter before I answered.’

  His friend shook his head pityingly. ‘You simple Simon. Do you know what a wealthy supper is? Evening dresses, immaculate shirt fronts, diamond pins, and sparkling patent boots. If you don’t look as if you’d just stepped out of a fashion plate you’re a pariah, you’ll be trampled on, pulverised. And probably the whole family will be there. You haven’t even got an ordinary dress. Why, I’d sooner think of dropping through a chimney pot than going.’

  Rudolph rubbed his cheek, perplexed; this view of the case had never presented itself to him.

  ‘Then what shall I do?’ he questioned disconsolately. ‘Can’t you suggest something in my dire extremity? Go I must; even if it’s in this,’ pointing to his transparent alpaca, which had the appearance of a Turkish carpet, for he had used it as a palette once or twice by mistake.

  ‘Good God! If you can pretend that you mistook the invitation for one to a fancy-dress ball it might work. But I’ll tell you what. My landlady, who as you know is very sweet on me, possesses a husband, who possesses an evening dress, which God knows what he uses for, unless it’s to hide a hole in the wall which they want no one to see; for I’ve lived there two years and that suit has never shifted. It’s in a state of remarkable preservation except for some green paint spots on the shoulder little Madge dropped on it when the house was being repaired; but that wouldn’t notice in the evening. She’ll lend it me if I say it’s for myself.’

  ‘Dave, you’ve saved me. Thou art indeed a friend in need. But you must have a swell landlord.’

  ‘He seems to have some mysterious connections with ‘igh society, from what I can make out from his missis. I rarely see him.’

  Next day Dave brought the prize round. He had succeeded in borrowing it without much difficulty, but with a caution from the landlady to be careful, as it was a particular favourite of her ole man’s, being the one in which he had captivated and conquered his Mary Ann, it being so precious that he would not wear it but look at it only to remind him of their honey days.

  The suit was laid out, and Rudolph proceeded to make his entrance into the uniform of a gentleman, into which he completely disappeared. When gradually his limbs one by one emerged from its recesses, and he had managed to extricate his head from the vacuity, he desired to know Dave’s unbiased impression as to its decorative qualities. After careful examination from all points of view, Dave delivered judgment to the effect that he thought its decorative qualities immense, but that one was inclined to lose sight of the object it was intended to decorate.

  ‘Do you really think it is slightly too big?’ queried Rudolph anxiously; ‘I feel somehow I am lost in it. But don’t you think it will make me look bigger?’

  ‘It might, if one could see you, but I think we can do it with pins. I expect it’ll look a little creasy but it won’t notice at night.’

  ‘And these green spots, are they noticeable?’

  ‘O! they won’t notice at night.’

  ‘And now, the shirt front. Didn’t she have one?’

  ‘Well, he couldn’t keep the shirt front for two years. Possibly he might if he had foreseen this emergency. I don’t know what to suggest unless we buy one. We may get one at the pawnbroker’s shop. You might even exchange your alpaca for one, these stains won’t notice in this light.’

  Thus arrayed in swallow-tail and shirt front, enveloped by his friend’s overcoat, with his portfolio under his arm, and the inevitable sombrero on his head, the transformed Rudolph set out on his way to Harris. This was just the opportunity he desired; now he would assert himself. For one night the evening dress was his, for one night would he revel in the privileges it meant. He felt transformed, transfigured; and in his sense of power he mentally pictured society as a beautiful lady, deferential and smiling, showering flowers and delights.... These thoughts were counteracted by a sudden inrush of natural shyness; of embarrassment; and he suddenly felt bewildered and mute in the presence of this beautiful creature. While he listened to her mellifluous voice, masculine voices seemed to respond in rich tones, and elegant forms of perfect ease made him appear to shrink — shrink but unable to escape. ‘St John’s Wood’, he heard the conductor call, and he rushed out just in time. He soon found the house and rang. The servant after inquiring his name asked him to follow and announced him. A young man came out, shook hands and pulled him in. After the preliminaries of introduction and the inevitable weather discussion, Rudolph undid his portfolio and arranged his drawings round the room, then stood by to explain and elucidate where elucidation was necessary, which was not seldom; for he painted on the principle that the art of pa
inting was the art of leaving out, and the pleasure in beholding a picture was the pleasure of finding out. Where he had not left out the whole picture, sometimes it was successful. After he had inculcated Harris with a sense of the sacred supremacy of his principles and proved his principles without justifying his pictures, and bewildered and mystified him into acceptance of his creed with a suspicion of its results, Harris found breath to ejaculate, ‘I should say you take more trouble in defending your pictures than in painting them.’

  ‘Yes!’ flashed Rudolph. ‘A religion may be the conception of a moment but it takes ages to spread. Propaganda is a necessary evil.’

  At supper, Mrs Harris asked Rudolph whether his father had literary or artistic propensities. Rudolph smiled, ‘The only deviation into artistic endeavour I have ever seen my father make was when he, in a frenzy of inspiration, turned and decorated my left eye most beautifully in blue and black (which decorative effect, unfortunately, I was not in a condition to appreciate, not being able to see it), and he accompanied that extraordinary feat with a fervour of exuberant flowery language. The most complete combination of poetry and painting I have ever experienced. But otherwise our genealogical tree has not many blossoms of genius. I am the first to scandalise the family with a difference. They consider it perfectly immoral to talk and think unlike them — and — well what can I do — they show their sense of superiority by being ashamed of me!’