Georgiana
If Helen Trumbull had lived in the 19th, instead of in the 20th
century, there would have been no turmoil in her life and little
romance. But being a child of the Victorian era, rigorously instructed
in the puritanism of old Connecticut, and taught to accept
without question the old moral axioms of her forefathers, she
was confronted, at the very outset of her career, with the conflict
between her moral heritage, and the desire to cultivate her active
mind. Of course, at the age of ten or twelve, no such conflict
existed. What the Bible said about lying, and loving God and
your neighbor seemed adequate to cover any of life’s emergencies.
Marriage was taken for granted: it was a straight-forward compact
with God. There was nothing to be concealed in the marriage
relationship. Father and mother were just two people.
These things are all familiar to the modern reader. He has
heard about them. Indeed, most readers have themselves sprung
from some such atmosphere, and know, to their sorrow, how the
19th century prepared one for life. But Helen, like most of us,
thought herself the exception rather than the rule. When she
came home, after commencement exercises in her twelfth year,
bearing the “best scholarship” cup, and a prize for a theme about
the life of Christ, she experienced, for the first time, that feeling
of confidence in her own mental prowess, which was to accompany
her through life. Henceforth, the pleasure of exercising her
mind was among the greatest of all pleasures. Henceforth, she
could not be content with accepting everything on faith. And,
perhaps, at this point we may place the beginning of a conflict in
her nature which she never quite succeeded in solving.
Of course the difficulty grew slowly and imperceptibly. She
was confirmed in the Episcopal Church. She took her vows
with the utmost solemnity, her whole nature responding passionately
to the mystery of her religion. After confirmation there
was a deep sense of responsibility toward God, as well as an
appeal, derived from the beauty of the Christian conception, which
aroused a strain of poetry in her. And these things were only
intensified as she grew to understand the prerogatives and the
subtleties of womanhood. At school she was respected for her
brilliance and conscientiousness, and loved for her dark eyes and
hair, her slim figure, and the frank, open-hearted way she had
of talking to people. She was not a “leader”, because her intense
religious faith made her a trifle “different”. Yet the girls felt
that they could always go to her when assistance of any kind was
needed. And the boys who fell in love with her eyes were always
treated in the kindest, most sympathetic way. They did not know
how much it thrilled her to have a crowd of them to “manage”,
nor how many hours she had spent scheming for secret and complicated
flirtations.
However, “the truth will out”, and it soon became whispered
that Helen was a “flirt”—although “just in fun”. Indeed, the
game held a dual fascination for her, because it not only satisfied
her love of emotional excitement and mystery, but also supplied
a field of activity into which her mind could overflow. Neither
her teachers nor her parents recognized this. They smiled, in
a reminiscent way, and rejected the thought that Helen was
learning to play with fire.
When she was sixteen, she played once too often, with a boy
named Harry McMichael, who was a freshman football hero at
Harvard. His vigorous personality, and the almost savage way
he took her hand, after she had tempted him for several days
“in fun”, quite swept her away, so that her puritanism seemed
all afloat in a flood of emotions. She had never thought of this
contingency. Heretofore, she had been mistress, not only of her
lovers, but of herself also. Yet this time the dams seemed to
break. And she found herself leading Harry on, quite delicately—unsatisfied
until he had kissed her. She even made him do it
more than once, although, as it appeared to him, reluctantly.
After this episode her conscience roused itself from a New
England slumber, and asserted the old principles, even to the
verge of extreme asceticism. But there was no longer the old
mystery lurking in life; and, coincidently, there was no longer the
old fascination in the communion service. She wrote Harry a
letter saying that they had done wrong; they must never do it
again. But she could not really believe this—what was there
wrong about it, anyway? At the time, it was beautiful. And
there ought to be nothing left for regret save perhaps the memory
of that beauty. It seemed to her extremely narrow to eliminate
this kind of relationship from life entirely—to sit back and wait
for a stupid old husband. She read a good deal of Shelley, and
managed, against all odds, to skim through a book by Havelock
Ellis. Reason, she said, ought to dominate life—reason and
beauty. So she smoked a cigarette and experienced a wild,
imaginative thrill—a thrill which only ended in the old pangs of
conscience which seemed to curse her in every new venture.
A more trying experience arrived a year later, when she met
John Emerson, from Williams, flirted with him in her usual
manner, and was for a second time overcome by her emotions.
In this case, however, she had been even more the aggressor than
in the former, and poor John, who had himself a puritan ancestry
and a dim belief in the ways of God, could do nothing but respond
to her clever insinuations. Four or five times they met, during
the summer. Each time, it seemed to Helen that a new world had
been opened up before her. Each time, the old world receded a
step, though tearing with it part of her heart. Yet John announced
one night, passionately, that he loved her and wanted to marry
her. She was overwhelmed. She had not thought of love—like
that. She did not love John. She wept.
Here at last common sense came to perform a function which
religion seemed powerless to perform. John held her tightly and
stroked her dark hair, but she writhed inwardly. A kind of
agony petrified her. This was her work—her damnable thoughtlessness.
She had made him love.
Of course it all ended in a tragedy, and she had to send John
away, definitely. The old religion was sought as a refuge from
strife. It afforded immeasurable comfort. God seemed clothed
in His truest light—that of the forgiver—the comforter. Her
heart could not worship Him enough, and her lips could not
satisfy all that she had to say in prayer. True, she never gave
up her flirtations. They seemed to be an indispensable outlet to
her nature. But experience had taught her the boundary lines
which lie between men and women. This, and a refreshed enthusiasm
for the church guided her life successfully for the
ensuing six or seven years.
She was twenty-four when she met Roger Lockwood. It was
at a fancy dress ball in Hartford, to which she had come a trifle
reluctantly, since the prospect of a repetition of familiarly identical
scenes did not stimulate her imagination. However, once
having arrived, she found herself enjoying the gayly colored
dresses and the jazz music. She quite lost herself in the crowd
of faces before her. As in her coming-out year, she allowed her
consciousness of self to be swept away, and, urged on by the
music, confronted one partner after another with a rapid-fire of
conversation and glances from her eyes. She seemed almost to
dominate the room at times—especially to-night—although she
could have given no very definite reason for it. Perhaps it was
merely that her ever active nature was seeking some new and
more thrilling experience.
Roger, on the other hand, was not participating to any great
extent in the dancing. He was something of a ludicrous figure—calm,
passive, tall, and dressed as a young Southern gentleman
of the thirties, in brown plaid trousers, high collar, and black
bow tie. He wandered listlessly from one corner of the room to
another, keeping his eyes upon the figures of the dancers, but
rarely cutting in. He seemed to be searching for something
intangible—so intangible that he did not know what it was. He
could merely contemplate the faces around him, and follow the
rhythm of the music in an imaginative way. Roger was a visitor
at Hartford. He was up there seeking merely for diversion. He
wanted to divert his mind from the constantly recurrant thoughts
of his fiancée, who had gone with her family to Europe for the
winter.
Stolidly he “looked over” the girls as they went past. He was
surprised to find so many of them really beautiful. There was
one in particular who was dressed in the costume of the harem,—scarlet
with spangles,—and whose fair, almost childish, face
suggested moonlight and a kind of misplaced romance. Her light
hair hung prettily over her forehead. She talked with her partners
in an intimate way. He was introduced to her. But he
could proceed no more than a few steps before some one cut in;
and although he repeated this process several times, he found at
last more satisfaction in gazing at her from a distance and experiencing
a tantalizing feeling in the unattainableness of her
beauty. After all, it did not matter much since he was engaged
to a girl fully as beautiful. Besides, there were plenty of others
to dance with. And presently he became aware of a slim, dark-haired
figure, in a gipsy costume, which often swept by him. He
looked more closely at the face; and once he caught the mischievous,
half-serious glance of her eyes.
“Who is that?” he asked his friend, standing beside him.
“Who?”
“That girl in a gipsy dress.”
“That’s Helen Trumbull. Want to meet her?”
“Yes.”
His friend dragged him by the arm into the midst of the dancers.
Roger could not help thinking how ridiculous his brown plaid
trousers must appear.
“Mr. Lockwood—Mr. Trumbull.”
They danced. Roger experienced a slight thrill in the way she
held him. Her touch was very delicate. But she kept her hand
perhaps a trifle too far toward the back of her neck.
“Here I am at last,” he said. “I have been looking for you all
evening.”
“How tragic, to be kept in such agony of suspense for three
hours!”
She said it so quickly that he was put on his mettle. “Has it
only been three hours? It seemed like six!”
She laughed. “May I ask why you delayed so long?”
“I was stuck.”
“Oh, too bad. With whom?”
“With Dorothy Hollingshead.” He referred to the girl in the
scarlet harem costume.
“Oh, really! How exceptional! I suppose you are still stuck.”
“No,” he replied; “I’m free at last.”
They looked at each other and laughed. But Roger thought,
“Hell, this is platitudinous”; and felt that there was more to be
found in her personality than these rather strained mental gymnastics.
“Let’s sit out,” he suggested on the spur of the moment.
“Already? Why I hardly know you!”
“You might get to know me better.”
“Would it be worth while?” she looked up at him, on the verge
of laughter. He nodded solemnly. And presently she stopped
dancing and led him by the arm out of the room.
“This,” she said, as she sat down in a large gilt-edged arm-chair,
“is the most unconventional thing I have ever done.”
“Really? You must be something of a model of excellence.”
“Oh, do you think I could be? I should like to be.”
He wondered how seriously to take this remark.
“Oh,” said she, “you’re a skeptic. You don’t believe any woman
is a model of excellence.”
“I have never found one.”
She turned away prettily.
“Well,” said Roger, “it isn’t a question of models; it’s a question
of more or less.”
“And where would you put me—more or less?”
He hesitated, seeking for a clever twist to give the words.
“Oh there! You see! I have made a wrong impression.”
“I was going to say more. But sometimes my first impressions
are wrong.”
“And I suppose you would like to have them wrong?”
How cleverly she had touched upon a forbidden subject!
“Yes,” he said, “I would.”
They both laughed then, for it seemed that they had already
attained a kind of intimacy. He was aware that her charms
emanated not only from the way she spoke these, but also from
the whole expression of her face and her body, which was
tantalizing—a vague innuendo. He compared her, not unfavorably,
to Georgiana, his absent fiancée. But then he cursed himself
for a fool. Georgiana and he had grown up together.
They returned to the dance, chatting easily, arm in arm. But
when supper came, which was an informal affair, he found himself
leading her into a secluded corner of the room, where they
settled themselves into their chairs, and sipped coffee luxuriously.
“I think you’re a fast worker,” she said, right in the middle of
a silence.
He smiled. “I was about to say the same thing of you.”
“Oh, but it wouldn’t be true—of a girl.”
“No?”
“No.”
The finality of her voice would have been convincing, had it
not been for the expression of her mouth. But it was easy, from
this point, to branch off into a more serious discussion about the
relative functions of girls and boys. In order to ascertain her
reaction, he ventured the theory that a woman was always justified
in her flirtations; that the beauty of the moment, in love, was all
that really counted; and that an engagement was really not binding
if either party should lose interest. She disagreed with this, and
said:
“I think an engagement is sacred. Flirting—well, that’s the
food of life, you know. But it’s one of my principles never—”
She paused, fearing that she was becoming a trifle too frank
with this comparative stranger.
“Well, go on. Never—”
“No, I don’t know you well enough to tell you.”
He laughed. “Well, it’s quite obvious what you were going
to say.”
She bit her lip and colored, with a flush of anger.
“I suppose you think me a fool,” she said.
“I don’t. I admire you. I think an engagement is sacred—of
course. But what I meant was that often men are carried away—in
a moment—by a look or a gesture—by anything. And I
can’t exactly blame them for it. I can’t see how a man is expected
to live up to his ideal, in a case like that.”
“No.” She seemed to ponder the question carefully. “But
don’t you see, it’s the woman’s fault—when men are carried
away?”
They looked at each other, then, each recognizing the potentialities
of their own situation. The look was intense. It sent a
flush across Helen’s cheek.
“Perhaps you are engaged. How little I know about you!
Are you?”
He hesitated. “No,” he said at length. What did it matter?—this
one evening!
“Ah then,” she replied, “the sky’s the limit.”
“No; the stars!”
They both laughed and proceeded with their coffee. Somehow
the conversation turned upon religion. They grew more and more
serious. He respected her beliefs, although he did not hold them
himself.
“There was only once in my life,” she said, alluding vaguely to
the past, “when I didn’t believe. But I was growing up at the
time. I was fascinated by Byron’s character and used to picture
him as an ideal lover. Then I read some of Mathew Arnold.
Have you ever read him.”
“Yes—long ago—at college.”
She smiled. “Long ago?”
“Well, four or five years ago—I don’t remember exactly.”
“Oh, you must read him again. He will give you a new point
of view.”
“Did he give you that—that theory about engagements?”
“No.”
“Where did you get that?”
“Oh—why—from myself, I guess. It’s common sense, isn’t
it?”
“Yes. Isn’t that the way morals are made—from common
sense? Don’t your principles, as you call them, come mostly
from your own common sense, rather than from your religion?”
She hesitated. “Well, put it this way: I think out my principles,
and religion gives me the strength to live up to them. There
now—that’s almost like Mathew Arnold.”
There was quite a long silence.
“My, but we’ve gotten serious,” she said at last, and looked at
him, as though to see if he were playing with her. But it was
evident that he was not.
Presently they returned again to the dance.
Roger decided to prolong his visit to Hartford, and in the
course of the next few days he saw her several times. She did
not live very far out of town. For her part, Helen found herself
dangerously fascinated by him. Whenever she was with him,
she was led to suggest things “in fun”—things which would
actually be quite contrary to her puritanical principles. And he
always seemed to respond, up to the very limit, although he had
not so much as tried to take her hand. She reflected that she had
never flirted quite so violently with any man, without having him
spoil the excitement by an attempt to leave the realms of the
intellectual, and burst into the physical. Roger almost satisfied
her highest ideal.
She asked Mary Waterworth about him one night, and Mary
told her that he was engaged. Mary even showed her a picture
of Georgiana, which Helen gazed at for a long time. Georgiana
had light hair and large eyes, which were probably brown, and
almost classic features. She was very lovely, Helen thought.
The expression of her face seemed to say, “I understand Roger.
I belong to Roger. There is more to bind us together than a
night’s flirtation. There is the whole past.” Helen was jealous
in spite of herself. The picture, which was mounted in a large
silver frame, and which gazed out at the world innocently enough,
fascinated her. She could with difficulty remove her eyes from it.
“What are you looking at?” asked Mary.
“Nothing—I—I thought the face seemed familiar.”
Why, why had Roger lied to her? What could be his motive
in telling her that he was not engaged? It seemed altogether
despicable of him—after her direct question.
The awful thought came to her that he had been playing with
her. She had always feared this—that some man would see
through her superficialities, and play with her. She drew a mental
picture of Roger’s calm, ironical smile, and his conceit in his
own success. Oh!
That night they were to drive out to the country, to a barn
dance. Roger arrived in his roadster at the appointed hour.
Helen stepped into the car frigidly, not deigning to take his extended
hand. She was going to punish him—punish him—for
leading her on as he had. But no sooner had the car started than
he made her laugh at some foolish joke; and half of the frost
was thawed. Then, too, he was sitting very close to her. And
he had that damnably attractive look in his eyes. She decided to
defer the punishment—for a number of “reasons”. It would
spoil the whole evening—their last evening, since John was bound
for New York the next day. There would be so much fun for
both of them—to go ahead—to-night—just as they had been
going. Finally—and this decided her—by holding her knowledge
of his engagement secretly in the back of her mind, she would
be able to inflict a subtler and much more severe punishment upon
him when he was not expecting it. She would be in the position
of an opportunist, with hidden weapons ready for the emergencies.
So she sat back comfortably in the seat beside him, and
talked in the most fascinatingly intimate way that she knew.
They stopped at the top of a long hill, and he swung the car to
the side of the road, so that they could see far out across the
moonlit Connecticut valley.
“We’re out of gas,” he said with a smile, “and besides, I want
to look at the view.”
Helen rather liked the way he said it, since the engine was still
turning over healthily. Still, she hesitated. As he reached for
the switches and turned out the lights, she knew, deep in her
nature, that she could not control this situation. They had better
drive on. But then, there was the thrill of excitement, of the
new experience. Again she found “reasons”. Why, it would
be all right. John was in love with Georgiana. There was no
danger. He was a sane, honest man. He desired, like herself,
merely the thrill of the moment. Men who are engaged are safe.
Yet even as this thought flashed into her mind, she felt his hand
upon hers, and his arm around her shoulders. For a moment the
picture of Georgiana flashed before her eyes. She saw, again,
Georgiana’s beautiful hair and her supreme expression. Then it
was that she gave herself up to Roger entirely, for the vision of
the other girl made him seem even more intensely romantic.
Her principles! Where were they now? After Roger had
started up the car again, the whole past seemed to cry out to her
that she had been unworthy of herself.
“Roger,” she said, holding his arm, “we ought not to have done
that?”
“Why not?”
“Because—you—I know you are engaged.”
He turned upon her, a little fiercely. “How did you know
that?”
“Some one told me.”
“Well, what if I am?” he said. “I suppose you think me insincere—and
a beast.”
“No, I was thinking of myself. I knew you were engaged. I
ought not to have allowed you to go ahead.”
“Hell,” he said, “it isn’t your fault. It’s Georgie’s fault. I
didn’t want her to go abroad. I told her that I couldn’t stand it.
But she laughed, not being able to understand a man’s point of
view. She laughed and said that if I really loved her, it would be
easy. But it isn’t easy, and I do love her.”
“Have you loved her—long?”
“All my life. We were brought up together. I can’t remember
any girls at all, without having the impression of Georgie mixed
up with them somehow.”
“And you have done—this—before?”
“Occasionally. You see, Georgie is a peculiar character. She
is too exacting. She sails serenely on—like an angel—imagining
that everyone else is an angel also. Sometimes, when she deserts
me for a long time, I don’t live up to scratch. I always complain
to her, and tell her about it. But she laughs, and calls me silly.”
“How long have you been engaged?”
“Actually, only about six months.”
“Oh.” The problem fascinated Helen. And it was, for her,
an important problem, since she wished to ascertain how much
evil she had done. She began to feel extremely unhappy, not
only because she had broken her principles, but mainly because
she had lost her supremacy as mistress of the situation. Artistically,
she had failed. And she writhed at the thought of how the
punishment which she had intended to inflict upon Roger had
turned itself back upon her.
On the other hand, she told herself inwardly that neither was
Roger really in love with Georgiana, nor Georgiana with Roger.
She reiterated this several times. It gave her comfort. And she
justified her presumption on the grounds that Roger was too easily
led astray, and Georgiana apparently too casual, for any very
lasting relationship to exist between them.
Toward the close of that evening she began to feel more the
mistress of the situation again.
Of course, after Roger had gone back to New York, she experienced
some qualms. Indeed, there were times when it made
her utterly miserable, to think what she had done, and when
Georgiana’s picture would come before her eyes again to arouse a
poignant feeling of remorse. Her flirtations had not only been
unfair to Roger: they would be considered despicable by Georgiana.
And somehow she loved and admired Georgiana. At such
times, religion seemed the only outlet to her emotions, and the
altar the only pedestal upon which she could place her heart. Thus
she was comforted.
Nevertheless, that winter proved to be a period of emotional ups
and downs. Roger visited Hartford more and more frequently.
Each time he came the same scenes were enacted, alone, somewhere,
in the little roadster, on the highway. It was simply
inevitable. To begin with, he had kissed her once; and ever
after that his kisses seemed not sinful, but natural. She found,
also, that he filled a definite place in her life. She needed him.
And this need was only the more strengthened by the gradual
association of him with her religious emotions. Starting from
the feelings of remorse, her prayers gradually changed from
fervent requests for strength to keep Roger away, to pleas, as fervent,
that he come back again soon. Georgiana was thrust into the
background. Although she did not admit it, Helen was in love.
In a sense it was only her just share of the spoils that she have
these short hours with Roger, while Georgiana was gallivanting
about Europe.
But such a state of affairs couldn’t last long. Helen had completely
rationalized her principles, and Roger had completely ignored
his duties toward Georgiana. He woke up to this fact one
day. He was at first disturbed, but later cleared up the matter
a little, with a grin, by saying that for a lover there were really
no duties. The mere fact that it seemed to be a duty for him
to leave Helen alone, proved a great deal—proved, in fact, that
he was no longer in love with Georgiana. What a stupid ass he
had been, all this time. He was in love with the past, but not with
Georgiana. He had allowed a childish emotion to dominate his
maturity. Georgiana was a lovely dream; but she could never be
his wife. Ah! Who else—who else—but Helen? His mind
fluctuated. It hovered indecisively for several weeks. He saw
Helen again. They parted, almost tearfully. And then the only
course seemed to be to write Georgiana, and break the engagement.
Here was a small tragedy. But he accomplished the task. And
the tragic feelings aroused were transferred over to Helen’s personality,
making his love for her all the more compelling.
Then he told her, one night, what he had done.
For her, it was very much like a pitcher of cold water poured
on one who is half asleep. With a gasp she was roused from her
rationalized dreams. The most terrible aspect of it was that the
deed was already done. It was irretrievable. She had instigated
it. She had allowed the whole affair to drift to this conclusion.
She could articulate nothing, but held closely to Roger, sobbing—torn
by the conflicting passions within her. Never before had she
actually seen God face to face. But now He came to her, as a
terrible, revengeful angel, out from the past; while Roger, who
sat there, seemed to represent the other extreme of her being—her
mortal love. Call it casual love—you Christian hypocrites;
call it anything you will; it was nevertheless present, in the person
of this man, and its power over her was irresistible. It seemed
to her that her nature would break in two. Especially after she
had sent Roger away, with her promise to give him an answer
on the morrow—especially then, alone in her room, she experienced
a terrible feeling of being cut in half. The God of her
ancestors was simply merciless. “Why—why? What have I
done?” she cried. The answer was that she had flirted; she had
forgotten her principles—one moment—one fleeting moment; she
had rationalized; she had debased her own self-respect. Yet she
was in love, now, and he was in love with her. There was only
one course to be taken.
Perhaps two lovers never embraced more passionately than
these two when Roger learned the next day what her decision
had been. He understood, almost as well as she, the tremendous
storm within her. He understood that he alone could create a
haven where the storm might not enter, and where this delicate,
fitful ship could lie happily at anchor.
They were married quite peacefully in an old New England
church, and she went with him to live in New York.
Winter passed. Spring came. Georgiana returned. It is only
after some such calm as this that one can look back and contemplate
the true causes of a storm. Helen found, after she had
lived intimately with Roger for a short time, that there were a
great many things yet to be learned about each other’s characters.
Not only this. There were a great many things to be forgiven
in each other’s characters—more things, perhaps, than the average
man and wife can forgive. In the first place, she was vivacious;
he was stolid. She had a quick mind, essentially French; his
mind was slow and Anglo-Saxon. She was loath to recognize
these things; she tried to rationalize them. But they were there
continually to remind her that she had a very difficult situation
to manage, if she were to maintain her supremacy. Of course
she loved Roger. But it was not the same as in the days when
she had flirted with him.
Georgiana had come back—that was the difficulty. One day
she heard Roger return from work, and since he did not go directly
to greet her as usual, she started toward the parlor to greet him.
Yet at the door she paused, for she saw him in front of the
window, bending over something. Helen slipped behind the curtain
and peered through the crack. He held a picture in his hand;
and as he went over to the light to look at it more intensely, she
saw who it was.
“God, but she was a beautiful girl!” said her husband, as he
gazed for a long time into those deep eyes.
Presently he turned, went over to a drawer in the bottom of
the book-case, and started to put the picture away. Helen retired
quickly from the curtain. What troubled her most of all was
Roger’s queer psychology, which concealed these things. Then,
too, there was the distasteful, though emotional, necessity of
obtaining the picture, and destroying it, without discovery.
RUSSELL W. DAVENPORT.
The Artistry of Art
When we speak of an artist we do not think of a day-laborer.
Somehow there is a connotation of long fingers and delicate
features, an implication as of flowers, a suggestion of the super-fine.
About him as a halo is the word beauty.
Whatever materials he lays hold of, he plucks out of it beauty:
out of the dung-hill the flower, out of the chill moon passion, out
of the night light, out of the noon-tide shade. If he is found lying
in the gutter, as Oscar Wilde has remarked, he will at least be
looking at the stars.
The artist is primarily a temperament. He is a point of view.
Life may be a dome of many-colored glass, and the white radiance
of eternity thrown through it to our minds in varying colors, but
the artist sees them all, and so sees white, or sees none of them
and sees black. He looks at life comprehensively, and seeks a
unity. Where another is content with detail, the artist demands
structure. The general are genial enough to take life as it comes,
and are not concerned that it is chaos. The artist either goes forth
to meet life, or evades it utterly in both cases for the purpose of
making it cosmos. While others are content with a moderate
dividend of experience, the artist must have all of experience, or
none of it. He must be either a Pan or a Narcissus, a universalist,
or an egoist.
The Philistine world talk of artists as something not undesirable
certainly as past events, but undesired as present calamities.
There is in the air a sense of anxiety concerning them. They
make the complacent so uncomfortable. So has the world damned
them as unique, apart from the majority, being fearful of their
destiny, and has evolved, because of this fear, the false dogma
of spontaneous creation in art. A Dante is born the author of
the Divine Comedy; a Shelley rises a child from the womb the
inevitable father of the Prometheus and the Cenci; a George
Meredith is given a somewhat humbler birth in a fashionable
tailor’s shop the fated creator of the “Egoist” and Modern Love.
At any play, novel or poem in which destiny played such an
omnipotent part the world would turn up its nose, and say: “Absurd!
That’s not real, that’s not life.” But in the case of the
world’s artists it pleases the general to say: “Well, well, life is
stranger than fiction, is it not?”
A modern philosopher has written, and it seems to me most
wisely, “Our temperaments are in some sort our destinies”. Now
let me admit thus far the world’s conclusion. The true artist is
born like the rest of us with a certain temperament, which is in
some sort his destiny. But it is at this point we must leave the
world. For if it were only this birthright that was required,
certainly there would be in this present day a plethora of geniuses.
The artist is primarily a temperament, but secondarily he is an
artist. The importance I attach to this secondary cause of creative
ability is the importance of the unknown, or at best the unrecognized.
For it is in the world’s tradition to ignore this fact. Only
the geniuses themselves have spoken for the artistry of art.
Let us consider this paradox for a moment. The world’s idea
of an artist as born the child of destiny, conceived in the womb
of Fate, fore-doomed a priori; and the world’s idea of all other
men as free, at least in part, to form and fashion their own daily
lives.
When we speak of an artist we do not think of a day-laborer,
nor of labor. We are amused at Whistler’s famous repartee to
Ruskin’s lawyer when he asked him how he dared charge so much
for an hour’s work, and Whistler replied, “Not for an hour’s
work, but for the knowledge of a lifetime,” but as a jury we are
not convinced by it. And yet in following the development of
certain great poets I am more and more capable of imagining
what I know to be true, that, granted the temperament, genius
is made by intense industry; and that it is labor which causes the
difference between the great man and the unhappy dilettante.
Dante’s “Vita Nuova” is merely a promise of the Divine
Comedy. His greatness consists not in his having made, but in
his having kept that promise. You have in this little book a
beautiful example of the artistic temperament, and a brilliant
statement of the methods of greatness: “Then it came to pass
that, walking on a road alongside of which was flowing a very
clear stream, so great a desire to say somewhat in verse came
upon me, that I began to consider the method I should observe....
Then I say that my tongue spoke as if it moved of its own
accord, and said, ‘Ladies that have intelligence of Love.’ These
words I laid up in my mind with great joy, thinking to take them
for my beginning; wherefore then, having returned to the above-mentioned
city, after some days of thought I began a canzone
with this beginning.”
Now I do not think that walking along a road by a river and
thinking of a girl one loves, and speaking, as if one’s tongue
moved of its own accord, a line of verse concerning her is an
unusual performance. In fact, given the temperament, it seems
a very natural one. I venture to say that no one who has ever written
poetry has not done the same. And Dante’s resulting poem is not
extraordinary. It certainly could not at the time have suggested
by itself its author as a compeer of ὁ ποιήτη. It exemplifies the
artistic temperament, and is indicative of it. By it we know
Dante to be a poet. Of his greatness as yet we know nothing.
It is fortunate that at the close of this book of his youth this
young and intense Italian mentions a vision by which was disclosed
to him a secret: “After this sonnet, a wonderful vision
appeared to me, in which I saw things which made me resolve to
speak no more of this blessed one, until I could more worthily
treat of her. And to attain to this, I study to the utmost of my
power, as she truly knows. So that, if it shall please him through
whom all things live that my life be prolonged for some years, I
hope to say of her what was never said of any woman.”
Dante was born a poet, but only after seeing this vision of
Beatrice which revealed to him the necessity of artistry did he
enter upon his new life of greatness in the middle of the way of
which he wrote the Divine Comedy. His method was as simple
as truth. He studied to the utmost of his power, as she truly
knows. You will remember the creation of the Divine Comedy
made him lean for many years.
So Dante, so Shelley; Shelley who is the example par excellence
of the genius born to make his life an infancy, and sing his fill,
pouring forth his soul in profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
For when we read critically Queen Mab, we are forced to admit
that it is at best a mediocre creation of little weight in the scales
of beauty or of truth. The development to the Prometheus is
swift, but it is achieved by the method of industry.
You will remember how Shelley read all day every day, how
he read on long walks in the country-places, how he read in
London streets walking down Piccadilly, crossing Pall Mall. You
will remember how Trelawny describes him in Italy standing all
day leaning against the mantelpiece of his living-room, not moving,
intensely reading, and not stopping to eat, not even when Trelawny
left a plate of food by him, and went out. You will remember
how he worked on the Revolt of Islam, leaving Mary,
and going off to a little island, and writing all day without food
or distraction, undisturbed by the attractions of nature, being
part of them, and as them lost in the existence of his art.
Queen Mab was the work of a young untutored artistic mind.
The Prometheus, the Cenci, the Defence of Poetry are the
creations of a genius. The change is unusual, but not miraculous.
His industry was more intense than most, for he accomplished in
less than ten years that for which most geniuses require a lifetime.
From the stage in 1811 when “Reason is all in all”, and
“poetical beauty ought to be subordinated to the inculcated moral”
to the stage in 1820 in the “Defence of Poetry” where “There is
no want of knowledge respecting what is wisest and best in
morals, government and political economy.... But we want the
creative faculty to imagine what we know,” and to the contemporaneous
Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, where Reason is no
longer all in all and “the awful shadow of some unseen power”
is
“Like aught that for its grace may be
Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery.”
From the early stage to the late there is a long road of intense
labor over which Shelley in his mad and impetuous way ran like
Pheidippides at top-speed the race of death and immortality.
“No doubt Shelley’s bad health in the autumn of 1817,” writes
one of his biographers, “was partly caused by overwork, for in
that year he had written as much poetry as would take ten years
in the life of a less impetuous writer.”
All his life Shelley spent in piling up knowledge from forbidden
mines of lore. With more energy than any other poet Shelley
performed the Herculean labors of greatness, and so swiftly was
it done that the world has fallen into the error of considering him
as a bird who sang inevitable songs.
In these two cases I have shown what seems to me to be powerful
evidence of the fact that, although artists are born, geniuses
are made. I have shown the methods of greatness as applied to
the lives of two great men. Actually, perhaps, I have been talking
about the artistry of the artist.
Let us turn for a moment to evidence of this same method of
industry as applied to an individual work, more strictly, perhaps,
the artistry of art.
“Love in the Valley” is unquestionably one of the great lyrics of
English literature. As unquestionably, I think, in its first published
form, it was a very mediocre, if not an utterly bad poem.
Let me quote you the first verse as it stood in the early edition:
“Under yonder beech-tree standing on the greensward,
Crouch’d with her arms behind her little head,
Her knees folded up, and her tresses on her bosom,
Lies my young love sleeping in the shade.
Had I the heart to slide one arm beneath her,
Press her dreaming lips as her waist I folded slow.
Waking on the instant she could not but embrace me,
Ah! would she hold me and never let me go?”
This is indeed a supple young lady. Consider that she is standing,
and crouching with her knees folded up, while she lies asleep
in the shade. I fancy it is a troubled sleep. Consider, too, that
in this verse there is an unhappy repetition of the word folded,—the
last mention of that word being in the wrong tense. Consider
that this is the first version of the first verse of one of the few
great lyrics. It is a poor thing, at best. There are flashes of
talent, but so are there in a thousand lyrics of young poets, nothing
of whose work is counted immortal.
But George Meredith was great. With the industry of the
great he came back to this poem. Lo! it has arisen from the
grave.
“Under yonder beech-tree, single on the greensward
Couch’d with her arms behind her golden head,
Knees and tresses folded to slip and ripple idly,
Lies my young love sleeping in the shade.
Had I the heart to slide an arm beneath her,
Press her parting lips, as her waist I gather slow,
Waking in amazement she could not but embrace me,
Then would she hold me and never let me go?”
The artist is primarily a temperament, but secondarily he is an
artist, and his artistry, and the artistry of his art are what determine
his greatness. Geniuses are born, and are made? But many
are born, while few are made.
I think it is our duty to encourage greatness, even, if we, ourselves,
have not the creative ability to imagine what we know.
MAXWELL E. FOSTER.
