NEUTRALS IN LITERATURE.

Evening Star, Issue 16464, 30 June 1917, Page 2

NEUTRALS IN LITERATURE.

In .our;-article on this page last'week, under the caption 'On Being Neutral,' wo were naturally led to think of the illustrations of Neutrality that might bo gathered from Literature and Biography. Both supply them in liberal measure. It may not be uninteresting, we trust, to put a few in evidence. The subject is one that can liardly be for the Neutral is a type that attracts multitudes of lives. ' A suggestive writer says, that in matters political a flabby, amorphous eclecticism is upon too many of us. Watching the conflict of principles or policies in a dazed and bewildered frame of mind, wo persuade ourselves that we ara philosophically impartial, whereas in reality wo are only indistinctly indifferent. That is true, not only in the sphoro of politics, but in every other sphere of life. "Talk business, not war; this office ia neutral," was the significant notice posted in a big .store in an American city. A man went to tha marriage registrar, and one of the questions, asked him was:

"What is your religion?" "Oh, anything you like." " Oh, no, it must he what you like." "Well, just put down the religion that's going." _" That won't do. You must bo specific."

"Well, then, I'm nothing." • Religion is full of such men; and not only religion, but in every department of life and thought there are men and women who take no sides. Many years ago Dr Arnold, of Rugby, wrote to a friend regarding the spread of. indifferentism and dilettantism: I believe that " nil admirari" in this sense is the Devil's favorite text, and he could not choose a better one to introduce his pupils to the more esoteric parts of his doctrine. And, therefore, I have always looked upon a man infected with this disorder as one who lias lost the finest part of his nature and his best protection against everything low and foolish. The disease has nob decreased, but rather tho opposite, since Dr Arnold wrote; but his diagnosis of the consequences of it remains as truo as ever. Let us look at one or two portraitures of it in our literature. ******* Oscar Wilde proclaimed himself once as " neither for Gcd nor for his enemies." We know how that ended for him. He borrowed the phrase, as we shall see after a little, from Dante. A greater poet than Oscar Wilde, Francis Thompson, once described himself : So flaps my helpless sail, ' Bellying with neither galo of Heaven. Nor Orcus even. Tennyson lias drawn a striking picture of the Neutral in ' The Palace of Art' : I take possession of man's mind and deed, Icare not what the sects may bawl; I sit as God, holding no form of creed, But contemplating all. And the issue of that is put in very impressive form by this great master of music. But perhaps Browning is tho man who has dealt most effectively with tho subject. Directly or indirectly it comes up in many of his poems. One of the best known of these is the somewhat difficult one entitled ' The Statuo and tho Bust.' A man and woman love each other. The woman is already married, but her heart went not with her hand into the union. Life in its fullness lies in that love. Yet they delay action for years. The passion cools. They know the love to be vain, yet they wish to commemorate it; how we must refer tho reader to tho poem. And now they are gone, and nothing remains but the statue to tell their crime. But what was their crime? Browning says their crime was inaction, dilatoriness, postponing opportunities that should have been seized. In other words, the moral of .this poem appears to be that, it is better to seek even evil with one's whole mind than to be indifferent in goodness. It is only another way of putting that tonrible sentence that fell upon the Church of Laodicea : " Because thou art neither hot nor cold, I will spue theo out of my mouth." It is a sentenco that is the quintessence not of hat© or wrath, but merely of disgust.

Tlio sin I impute to each frustrate ghost Is the ,unlit lamp and the ungirt loin, Though the end in sight was a vice, I say. So strong and profound ia Browning's conviction of this, that he does not hesitate to teach there is .more hope of a fierce and fcarles3 sinner than of a character neutral, spiritually indifferent, colorlessly good. This, as we have seen, is the central thought of 'The Statue- and the Bust.' It is also the moral of another of his great creations—Guido. Guido is one of tho three or four supremo and terrifying portraits *ot Evil in our literature. He belongs -with lago, Grandcourt, and Egoist. Thrown on the background of the matchless beauty of Pompilia, ho looks like A certain ugly cloud-shape goblin shred Of hell smoke, hurrying past the splendid moon. Yet it is Pompilia who says of him that the very fierceness of his liate -was tho truth in him. Tho energy and earnestness with which ho seeks to work evil must bring him sharp up at last against the bucklers of the Supreme Righteousness that rules tho world. As, in fact, it finally did; and through tho crack and crush of the onset he saw a glimmer of tho true light before ho was at last dismissed to his doom. As Browning's greatest interpreter (Professor Jones) says:

The poet's optimism finds a difficulty in including in its faith the lukewarm, the morally indifferent. Tho man or -woman who tries to compromise between virtue and vice, who regards each as matters of prudence, and is resolute for neithor, is hopelessly damned. In these, as Browning says elsewhere, even Thickheads ovghfc to.recognise The Devil that old stager, at his trick Of general utility, who leads Downward, indeed, but fiddles all the way. ******* But it i s to Dante tihab we must come at last for the fullest and most suggestive treatment of the Neutrals. It is found in the third canto of the ' Inferno.' Dante's spiritual geographv is significant. The Neutrals aro not in Hell; they are in a lurid of vestibule or ante-Hell. We suppose that Dante means tlrus to indicate that they a,TQ not worthy to bo ranked •with the»decided rebels against goodness. Heaven is impossible to tl«m, and they are tho rejects of Hell. Their Neutrality has left them neither among tho saints nor the sinners, but between the contempt of both. Their oaso is truly hellish enouglu The first thing to be noted is the inscription above tho summit of tlie entrance-gate: "All hope abandon, ye -who-enter hca'e." TJie next is their numbers. They are a multitude so vast that he had not thought that " even death so many had undona." Mingled with these are that " Caitiff choir lot Angels" who in tho great war of Heaven stand aloof to see what the issue •would be—insither for Govl nor against Him, only for themselves-. For this moral Neutrality Dante had an intense scorn. He denies it the possession even of lifo. '"They never -were alive," he says. And even his guide through these regions (Vir-

Gil) is made to say contemptuously of them: ■;■!« Let us not epeak of them, but look and pass." In the Purgatoi'ib the poet Statius was detained more than 400 years on the Terrace of Sloth'-ior" his wormness in not confessing; his faith 'in Christianity.; As to tihoir punishment, that is indicated-xmder frightful imageries. When Dante passes through the gate into this ante-Hell 'his ears are assailed by a babol of cries and signs, and in diverse languages and horrible dialects. Thev

Mado up a tumult that goes whirling on For over in t<hab air, for ever dark, Even as the sand doth when the whirlwind breathes.

Thes© wretched slaves, who ne'er true lifo could boast, Wero naked all, and, in full evil case, By gnats and wasps were stung that filled the coast; And streams of blood down trickled on each face, And. mingled with their tears, beneath their feet AYere licked by worms that wriggled foul and base. * *, * * J6- * - x .

Spiritual things hare to bo expressed in sense symbols. Physical torments arc impossible for disembodied souls. So wo must eeek for the significance of all this imagery in tho domain of the spirit. What it all means is not very difficult of comprehension. Tho general principle underlying it all i 6 that the punishment of sin- is congruous to its nature. In our interpretation we follow in the main that given by Dr Carroll in his exhaustive book, ' The Exiles of Eternity.' Dante sees this whirling, wasp-stung, blood-streaked multitude following a flag "unworthyof all praise "—i.e., unworthy to be set up permanently a 5 a standard round which bravo men might rally. Then he goes ort to show in detail how their Neutrality in the mortal life haa now become a fixed habit of character, and how it turns at last into a weary, barren, restless existence. The storm-driven sand is the apt symbol of such unfruitful, arid life. On earth they took the shapo and color of their environment. Hero they are naked. Death strips off all disguises, and men are eeon in their real natures. In this life their chief aim was to follow the line of least resistance, and to avoid any hostile criticism. In this ante-Hell they are stung by every wasp and hornet. Hero below they shed neither tears nor blood for anything or anybody; there they shed both, but for no worthy end or cause. The" blood and tears of such cowards are worthy only t 9 be tho food of loathsome worms, the symbols of corruption and decay. Their aim in. life was to stand well with overybody— to take no sides, so as to" avoid giving offence to any party. Now they live in tho memories of nobody. Heaven and Hell alike reject them: Heaven to keep itself free from stain; Hell lest, the damned should gain some glory from them—the glory, probably, of triumphing over cowards "who were'too timid to sin boldly. Such is the awful ending of lives that have no moral ideals, or, if they have, stifle all the urgings of the conscience to follow those ideals,

****** Only one of these caitiff souk is singled out for mention. But, in accordance with the Jaw that allows no fame of them on earth, his name is withheld; we only know him as ho

Who made through cowardice the great rems.il.

Various names have been suggested as to his identity—Esau, Diocletian, tho young ruler in the Gospels who bad great sessions but turned down the invitation of Christ. Those who connect it with the ruin of Dante's own fortunes identify him either with Vieri di Cerci or Pope Celestine V. The former was the leader of tho White Guelphs in Florence, and it is possible that Dante regarded his own exile as duo to the latter's cowardly refusal to fight. Dean Church, in his luminous essay on 'Dante,' says that the Whites were the originals of this picture of the Neutrals—" they dared to aspire to an "ambition which they were too dull and '! cowardly to pursuo when tho game was "in their hands." Tho common view, however, connects this spectral figure with Pope Celcstino, who occupied tho Papal Chair for only five months. Ho had formerly lived as a hermit. Ho found that of the Pope too big a temptation for his soul, so he returned to tho simpler life. His successor was Boniface, whom Danto regarded as one of the greatest enemies of Church and State, and indirectly the cause of his own banishment. He may well have regarded as cowardice on the part of Celestine to refuse to remain in office when it opened tho way for such an unworthy successor. "If Celestiue is meant, it is "significant that tho first soul mentioned "in Hell is that of a canonised Pope." The latest conjecture (and probably the truest) is that of Pontius Pilato. We find the otber actors in that great tragedy elsewhere in Hell—Caiaplias, tho chief priests, the Judges, etc.—but not Pilate, whoso absence is inexplicable. But it is explained at once if we identify him here with the man "who made the great refusal*" And thero is no more sinister type of the Neutral than the Roman Governor, nor, may we add, any who touches us all so closely. Repudiate his cowardice as most of us do, we feel a kind of sneaking sympathy with him, for in condemning him we realise that we aro pronouncing judgment on ourselves.