CYNICISM AND SNOBBERY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18577, 8 December 1923, Page 1 (Supplement)

CYNICISM AND SNOBBERY.

OPINIONS OF SANDY.

BY KOTABK.

"I've all ray life been fighting my besetting sin," said Sandy when last I saw him, "and it is like to get the best of me yet. Man, it is hard to keep your mind untouched by cynicism. Ive always tried to give every man a fair field and no favour. I've tried to fin the soul of good in tilings evil, and I ve never been able to manage it properly. Of course I have learned that with most men and women, to know all is to pardon all Most people are the prey to forces they cannot control. It is just as easy for one man to be a saint as t is for another to be a sinner. Not, in e> case; I don't mean that. lou have a queer world if you take moral responsi bilitv out of it. all the threads that are '•But think of all the threads that are woven into the pattern of any man s Me Everyone of us is the product of all the ages; in us all our ancestry bves fit-ed Man, what a queer menagerie of inherited impulses every human being is bound! to bo. It's fine to sing, I am tho master of my fate. I am tho captain of my eoul.^ And there is precious little value in life if that is rot somehow fundamentally true. But we blame and punish people as if we had an infallible measuring-rod to size them up. A man ought to be able to rule the kingdom of his mind. That is what makes him a man. He ought to be able to sav what thoughts will find yoad. jn and what will bo met on the threshold with 'no thoroughfare this way. He ought to be on the throne of Jus heart, not ftie slave of his emotions and passions, but their master. , " And yet the great majority of the things that annoy us and worry us.in others are the outcome of forces and tendencies that demand sympathy rather than blame. I know that. I try to build my life on that. But that's where I fear I am going to fail after all. . "Man, it is ha|-d not to be a cynic. 1 went into the theatre the other night. At pretty well every stop, the first people on the trams ere vigorous young men. , They had proved their manhood by thrusting in before tho women and girls. A lassie, about 10 years old, I should say, gave up her seat, expecting ono of the ladies in the aisle to take possession. Several men standing up made way for a lady further along the tram. Before she could reach the seat a presentable looking man rushed it, got out a paper, and no doubt thanked the gods of bis pantheon that there were so many fools about. A pitiful exhibition. ' " I had a good seat at the back of the stalls. The play was nothing great— pretty thin and obvious; but who wants to go. to the theatre to be educated? When they have made the stage a pulpit, they have always ruined it. I don't mind a bit of melodrama, myself. It was a fine, wholesome play, magnificently acted. But one lost'the opening of every act; heavyfooted folks waltzed in, rustling and whispering for at least five minutes alter each rise of the curtain. A woman near me with a laugh like a hyena loosed its raucous cacophony at the slightest excuse, and the actors were two speeches ahead when next we could- hear what they were at. Outside, loud voices grumbled and growled during most/of the performance, the only variety offering when one lifted itself in song, to a whistling accompaniment. " I suppose selfishness is at the bottom of it. I have contrived to keep on believing in human nature more or less. But there is so much selfishness about that one can't keep cynicism always at bay. The trouble is when one looks for the unworthy motive automatically. It's a bad sign when a man takes it for granted that every action is to be explained by self-interest. But it is a fight sometimes to keep unsullied your faith in your kind. Yeats. " For instance, now, I find it very hard to have patience with a man like Yeats. You have been speaking of his mysticism, of his symbolism. Some of his poems are !< as clear as crystal. He has the authentic singing gift, if anyone of our tinn has it. He can eaten a passing mood and enshrine it in glowing words. His 'Lake Isle of Innisfree/ for example. And could anything be finer than his ' Fiddler of Dooney ?' Man, he is as genuine a singer as Bobby Burns, «or Tennyson. " But he's not satisfied with that. He must wander into unknown fields where no one can follow him. I can't help thinking that a man who has supremely the gift of making himself intelligible, and who deliberately adopts a stvle that makes him -unintelligible, is guided chiefly j by his contempt of the popular judgement, j He deliberately mystifies people because i he thinks that what appeals to the many I is bound to be a much inferior thing com- j pared to what appeals to the elect few. You'll find that with many artists. They : are convinced that the esoteric and the obscure must be better art than the ; things that grip the mass of men. i "I don't know whether that is true! of Yeats, but I have my doubte about Mm. j There is a tremendous amount of iintel-' lectual snobbery about, and religious snob-' bery is the only worse thing I have ever met. You remember when Kipling first swept over the literary horizon. Here was something l new, something exotic. I And all the leading critics greeted him ! with rapture. Kipling had to create the taste for his own work, as every big man has to do. At first the critics had the field to themselves. They could not throw enough bouquets. And then the public took him up. In a moment he became the most popular writer of, the time. " You'll say that the critics would congratulate themselves on their perspicacitv, smile to themselves with conscious pride that they had pointed the way. Not a bit of it. They were suddenly stricken dumb. They , had discovered a choice singer for the elect, and here was the ignorant public actually more enthusiastic than they had been. Obviously they had made a mistake. And they have spent | what time they could devote to their old . idol in pointing out his feet of clay. Snobbery, you see; the passion for aloofness; the contempt of -the common herd. Matthew Arnold. " You'll find that all through modern literature, and you'll find a section of tho public who pose at any rate as if their fundamental maxim was " whatever the public likes, is sure to bo bad." •'You remember what Chesterton said | about Matthew Arnold. Man, he's a i clever fellow, that Chesterton. I'm net ■ sum that he is not the biggest literary snob of the lot, in one way. His whole life has been spent in taking up appar cntly impossible positions, and making out a case for them. ' He finds that everybody takes a certain thing for granted, and then uses all his brilliance to prove everybody is wrong. He assumes that the only" truth is found in the paradox. And he is about the most entcrtainim; writer of our time. I should say. But about Matthew Arnold. He was the supremo snob. Chesterton said of him { that he talked at his readers as if he , were a kind gentleman trying to make things plain to a school of imbeciio chil- ■ dren. ! " That's fine, isn't it? Could you get | ' a sounder piece of criticism? And i 'j Matthew Arnold was not the first. It I was Wordsworth who declared that ha j coujd have Written SJiakepcar's plays |if he had had the mind. Exactly; if he i J had had the mind. And Bernard Shaw j I cudgels the public, though quite convinced j j that this dull ass will not -mend its ' pace with beating. Even Rudyard Kipling has the same touch. That is what has almost ended his vogue. For the public lihes this sort of thing for a time; but e\on a worm will turn. " You'll be thinking I'm not verv true to mv principles. But I told you it was my besetting sin. And there are few tilings I dislike more than your snob." (