AUTHORS AND POLITICS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 247, 11 July 1908, Page 12

AUTHORS AND POLITICS.

To some people the political opinions of an; author may appear of as little, moment.as , tho colc<ir of his hair or the cut of his coat. Tho author, like the grocer, ;the hairdresser, , or the ironmonger,, is subject to the general ( and indiscriminate 1 law —" of heredity,, environment, :or sheer " chance " —underlying ; the statement of Mr. Gilbert that ' "Every little. bpy- and gal : _; Thit's born into this jwqrld alive Must 'be either a. 'little' Liberal, V. I Or else a little Conservative.": i .which lines, by the way, would nowadays require to be altered in order to include a | contingency undreamtof-in tho early days of. | the Savoy:— -• T 1 Every little boy and gal . _ , Thafs born and manages to exist. , Must be either a little Liberal, A'Unionist, or Socialist ... , J But the artistio temperament, or the artistic : . outlook, is a. very, important factor m the ; ; formation of political opinions.. A. musician i may be either : a ; dreamy'.'Socialist,' ofVith'e ,1 i William Morris .type, or a" sentimental" Tory;" i considering the attitude oftriumphant: dfr-: mocracy to music, it is impossible to imagine s ;. : him a Radical..' The same might bo said 1 'of-the painter-or sculptor, whoso sympathies. J ihover between the gefod old; days of /pictur- 1 esque living and munificentpatronage, arid 1 his own prophetic visions of a cultured and ; artistic communism. But the attitude of the musician or the Artist to politics is in 1 the main a purely professional one;; his' business is with the main structure of the . house of life, and he takes a littlo account of its ' economic foundations: or- political<■ scaffold* ' infjs. A like attitude is characteristic, of writers like Poe, Gautier,. Flaubert,- Maupassant, and Stevenson,-whose sole concern is with the form and colour of their own works; ' and of certain of the moro purely "introspective and descriptive poets. Such writers merely, give 'pl&sticity to the reyories;of;the . musician, and movement and a certain arti- ' culateness to the .creations of the'painter; and, however high their .artistic rank, .they : cannot be regarded as' authors in the com- : pletest sense of. the term.- , A ■ thoughtful student of humanity will certainly discount very heavily tho enthusiasms of parties-and ' the, promises. of politicians, and will bo only too conscious of the pathetic disproportion ' between the mighty volumes of cry and tho infinitesimal,tuft of wool. Still, as one-of the most striking manifestations of the spirit which 'distinguishes' Western . from.. Eastern' ' world of Plato from : the ; world of Buddha —politics have their place in -"the mind and writings of any author who can • <!onscientioasly subscribe , that test and formula' of 1 -true greatness—"Homo sum; |bumani nihil ;a mo alienum puto." : In a proso rhapsody on Dant'o published .the other .day, the writer works-himself up into a stato of high indignation because a certain literary society ventured to discuss " Dante as a Business Man." The rhap6odist ha'd apparently not read, or had for-, gotten ; the seventh canto of tho " Inforno," in which an oternal significance is lent to ; tho ordinary maxims of getting and. spending. A mind liko Dante's can bo approached only through its various aspects; its totality may b'o apprehended, by the . critic, but can be expressed only .by itself; an artist paints what the sun shines on; hp does not paint the sun. A full-orbed intclli- . genco presents an apparently porfect circle on every side - ., the lover and mystic per- . ceives only a larger and richer hemisphere of Dante than the politician and man of affairs. If tho secular'aspect of Dante's mind could be detached- from tho spiritual, which it , cannot, tho Divina; Commedia ! would appear a great political treatise. A total apprehension does not eliminate, but only raises, the " political idea: tho description of tho' Commedia as a poetical treatiso on divine law in the political world brings us as near the heart of tho Dantean mystery as a single phrase will tako us. The feudal system, and tho temporal power of tho Popes, destroyed the harmony of dual goveranco which ■ had ' been tho dream of Dante ; and politics, deprived of principle and meaning, remained moribund until they sprang into vigorous life from tho rich and weeded soil of seventeenthcentury England. Free speech, the widening of . the basis of electivo government, and, more than anything'else, the glorious, examplo of Milton, committed every subso-' quent British author to a political belief of some sort. Looking back over tho last two centuries, what chiefly strikes us is' that hardly any author- (we speak' of great writers, not of party hacks) has marched abreast of his own generation. Down to well within tho nineteenth century, a sharp dividing line might bo drawn between those who, like Johnson and Scott, lingered in the rear, and cast regretful eyes back to tho Goshen of feudalism and ecclesiasticism; and those who, like Goldsmith, Burns, and Shelley, crowned tho ridges of tho forward heights, and sang tho glories of tho promised land of liberty, equality, and fraternity. The spectacle of revolutionary France sent all but the bravest pioneers shuddering back on tho main body, and somo to the rear. The sentimental Toryism which, generally speaking; was -the fashion in the upper, circles, of literature during tho

first'half.'of tho nineteenth century reached ' its climax in the poetry of' Tennyson. Bj 1857, when Thackeray stood —unsuccessfullj —for Oxford in tho Radical-interest; the . leaders of thought had begun to steal cautiously'.forward through "the main army. A ' curibus; flank movement by Carlylo towards a >mirnga which blended tho features -of Goshen and Palestine was changed into, a '.- forward movoment by the humanitarian zeal of Dickens, who camo to vory close quarters- with tho Hittites of Bumbledom and • tho'Ammonites of the Circumlocution Office. ' Another flank movement, by Ruskin, towards another nu'rago, which blended the very choicest features of Goshen and Palestine, ■ was swept forward, this time in very brisk fashion, by his more obscure but more practical followers. Pre-Raphaelitism and media- : ovalism became involved, in a complex but quite comprehensive manner, with the' economic theories of' Marx and Lassalle, and what is called Fabian Socialism bccamo the prevailing literary -fashion. Perhaps the literary and financial disabilities of authors, of which Mr. Kipling presented so pathetic a catalogue to his hearers the other even- - ing,.may have something to do with it; anyit is a noteworthy feet, and ono which, in view of tho incalculable influence of imaginative writing, ( cannot bo blinked, that tho spirit of old-fashioned Toryism has disappeared from tho best fiction and poetry, and is to be found only in magazine articles) society novels, and cynical verse. Yet even tho fact that many of. our best novelists aro avowed. need not startle us. Thought is free; it is only natural that a writer who can make his own World should mould it to his own heart's desire. Both the Socialist novelist and bis readers are perfectly aware that imaginative writing is one thing, practical government quite _ another thing. The Socialism of tho idealistic novel 'is. not tho money in other people's pockets, like the Socialism ,of tho Labour member; it is the philosopher's stone of political alchemy, unattainable itself, but with' many valuable things' lying on tho way to it. And it is, on the wholo, a more healthful symptom that the imaginative tentacles of tne body politic should reach hopefully. into the virgin! soil of the than that they should burrow regretfully in the wast'heaps of tho past.—" Glasgow Herald."