THINGS AND THOUGHTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2861, 13 January 1909, Page 86

THINGS AND THOUGHTS.

By. John Christik. AN OFF-NIGHT TALK. I. One <jf the speakers was an irrespor.bibls philosopher, who gave lessens in literature to a nio-ht class attended by about thirteen young men, who called him Master ; the other was his favourite pupil Ainslie, a somewhat £ hr ggy-baired young fellow oi 6 even-and-twenty or thereabout, with indications of conceit about the mouth, bu^ with a depth of eye and breadth ot brow that suggested better things. "I am glad you aTe the only one bere ' to-night, 1 ' said the teacher ; -for now there will be no lectm-e, and' we can have a thoroughly pleasant evening. One has to tallk and talk to drive sense into soms heads; but though we sit and say nothino- you suck in. knowledge all the time. \nvhow I question whether anything worth saying could hay« been said under our chosen caption, 'Poets and Poetry. ] I "You mean," observed Ainshe, 'that ail , ' the good things have already been said ' ' about it by other people." i '•Not that quite, perhaps. But, aftei (all, who are poets? Madmen, who see f actual things awry, and rhapsodase about ' their intuitions and hallucinations as ' though they were objective realities " | 1 "That," said the other, "is hardly to ; the time of what we have heard you say \ about old Homer, Job, Isaiah, David, and ' others of the singing brotherhood." | "Well, those old fellows knew how to , ! stand firm and straight, no doubt ; and '■ David, for all his spiritual exaltation?, 1 loved a ° ood comic catch, too ; expressed, ' of course, in the most refined and academic ; Hebrew, with wit glinting and glancing I like light on a seraph's wing, each glint : dying as soon as bom, but only to be ( •' succeeded by another, rarer and more ' radiant than its predecessor. Aot David s to descend to villainous rjhilistiuese, on a | par with the verbal abominations of the , average clubman's after-dinner lubricity. "What ! David like catches !" "Well, the Talmudists say co, I believe. Besides, any fool might know it, David being a man, not a pkster-ol'-Pans prig. But°have you ever been struck with the amount of rubbish turned out by modern ' poets?" i "How?" "I mean how men of real powers waste I themselves on mere trash ; stuff that is j useless to mankind, and utterly discredit- j able to the writers- as men of genius ; ! rubbish that shows them to have no more talent for self-criticism than a plum pud- . ding or a wax doll." _ . j "I am not a metaphysician," Airuslie re- ; • marked ; "and cannot follow you in these 1 tarings and sinkings. I dislike getting bogged in the incomprehensible. May I, ' without offence, a?k you what you are ' driving at?" "And you are one* of the students who do not need to have things explained to them ! Surely *' i The Master talked for fully a quarter of J an hour in the somewhat volcanic, some- ' what vitriolic, style which lie was apt to fall into when speaking privately to a ( sympathetic listener. When hi had finished n. "I see,"' said Ainslie, '"(hat you never i abase your judgment in the presence of even the most august genius."' I "Why should I?" retorted the Master. "'Thpre is a sense in which a man of genius is a me.-^eng-er from God. That, however, is no reason for treating him as though he were an Oriental monarch, and we his slaves. On his part, h n is bound to do his work with dignity and thoroughness, with- , out giving himself vain peacock airs on ' account of his nii>=ion or his manner of i fulfilling it ; and the bu?ine*s of mankind ■ is to respect the powers which are embodied in his per.-on, to treat him with honour as their cuftodian, and to profit I spiritually, aesthetically, and intellectually i from their application. But where a man I of great powers misapplies his genius, I judgment should specially qualify its attii tude towaid-s him. He will have many [apologists; but need we belong to them? j In the highest region of thought and fee; • ing let us forgive all faulus and failings, but riis a mattsr of truth and justice in detail, it is an immoral thing to excuse a man. and particularly a gioat man, in a | Mjhit of nwndlin humaivty, for leaving . undone what he should ha\e clone, or for ! doing what he should not ha\e dene, j Tliut- to excuse him does him no good. | Awhile it weakens ard comipt.-, our moral ; .-en.»e, and the nioial sense of those we c;m-v with us in such matter." I "I suppose, '" obseived the young man. , ''you would say that poets HkeDryden and Pope would liave had more credit with posterity if^they had burnt all their trans- ( latioDis and imitations, and left us only Mich pieces as 'Absolam and Achitophel,' j I 'Cym.cn and Iphigenia,' and 'Alexander's | Fea«t.' in the one case, and in the other, thr - Ra])e of the Lock,' 'Abe-lard to Eloj>a', and the 'Elegy on the Death of an Unfoitunate Lady.' Thomson, I suppose, you would confine to his 'Castle of Indolence' ; Gray to his odes and lite Elegy ; Burns ta his bett songs and the 'Jelly Beggars,' 'Tarn o' Shanter,' the 'Vision/ . the 'Daisy,' the 'Mouse,' 'Man was Made to Mourn,' 'A Man's Man,' the 'Addre« to the Deil,' 'A Winter's Night,' and the Board's Epitaph; and Collins to his Pas- ; eions." J j "Yon pu^h my argument too far, and I a PPI7 U to ° rigidly ; but you are on the ' I track of my literary ideal. -Of the poets j t you mention, Collins is almost the only , I one who did not wast© himself on the , transient and unimportant. He wrote but little, and I would preserve nearly all he J wrote en account of his melody "and tenderness. His poetry has the grace, the ' . purity, the perfection of form of the finest t \ statuary. Some m^y thiai it coldj but

are those who think so not cokl them- * selves, or deficient in imagination?" "Even so ; but who," asked Ainslie, "re.ids Collins : n these days?" ; "Assurcdlj not the average patrons of the bookstalls and circulating libraries, nor the persons who, at the "publication of every tenth-rate novel, chatter about i + as though it were a masterpiece of genius. Were^ these people able to distinguish real literature from literary slush they would be less addicted to the consumption of flummery and garbage. B the way, oi Dryden and- Pope, Gray and Collins, who were all scholars a3 well as poets, have you noticed the number of false or defective rhymes to be met in their work? The fact touches a point of real interest to those who wish to get into right relations with the genius of the English tongue. Is usage in the matter capricious '! Were the rhymes which would be false now also fake then, or were the authors who used them leas observant, less cultivated in the ear in regard to such things than we are nowadays? These may be trifles, but the poet I who overlooks them is not, in my opinion, ,on the highway of literary art. A false ' rhyme or an uncouth phra6e in poetry is ; as bad as a jarring note in music, or an incongruous tint in painting. 7 ' "I suppose you think that the use of clipped, contracted, and hermaphroditic words, such as 'who'd' for 'who would,' I 'you'll' for 'you will,' 'fchou'rt for 'thou art, 'you're' for 'you are,' is incompatible ' with good literature ?' "Certainly I do," was the reply. "I know that these verbal abortions abound even in the work of great poets. But all such abuses should disappear with, the advance of literary culture." "Some might say that you were inveighing against trifles in. the interest of a priggish purism." "Well, I cannot regard it as a trifle if a man of genius behaves as though he J could not express his pafsion or his mirth without playing tricks upon his mother tongue. Let that be left to callow fools, ' punsters, and illiterate botchers. The j most joyous, gaiety, the most riant humour | needs no such aids." "Do you forget Thomas Hood?* "Forget Hood ! Please do not place me on the level of that recent reviewer who, in his survey of the poetry of the nineteenth century, never once mentioned , Hood, though he dan-dies the names of George Darley and others of that ilk." "Why, Master, you yourself, here and now, seem to have nothing to say about such men as Rossetti, Bailey, Clough, Patmore, Arnold, or Swinburne ; hot anything, either, about Elizabeth Browning. Then what about Jean Ingelow? Doubt - | less her total effectiveness is- impaired by ! that unfortunate feminine diffuseneff?, 1 which we have heard you speak of as an unpardonable sin in literary work, but, at , her best, is she not the sweetest and sanest of all modern singers?" "Your particular question can stand for> the present ; but as to myself and the reviewer, our cases are in no pen c e alike," ! was the reply. "Our groat critic had. as his thesis, the poets and po=trv of thp nineteenth century : I here, in informal talk with you. mevelv meniion this or that name, as we go along, ronecientiowrslv | in 50 far as we co, but yet only as the mental spur of the moment may prick us." 111. "I have," said Ainslie, "a friend who says that were it not for Hood's punning I and so-called humourous pieces he would fls soon set out for the Temple of Fame with h:s budget as with that of Alfred Tennyson." "That, I am afraid, is pushing personal preference beyond the limits of judicial criticism. Yet the man who wrote 'The Bridoo of Si/is.. 'The Song of the Shirt,' 'The Haunted Hon^e,' 'Ihe Plea of the Midsummer Fairies,', and 'Ruth' was a true poet, worthy of being loved for his humanity and reverenced for his genius. By the way, has it ever struck you that 'In Memoriam,' notwithstanding exquisite passages, aptly described by Tennyson himself as Short swallow-flights of song, that, dip Their wings in tears, and skim away, is in reality a diffusive dissertation on a subject which is much more satisfactorily handled by Paul of Tarsus in his Epistle to the Romans : 'O the depth of the riches both of the' wisdom and knowledge of God ! How unsearchable are His judgments, and Hit> ways paot finding out : lor of Him, and through Him, and to Him aie all tilings ; to whom be glory forever.' Contrast the concentiation and spiritual glow of llm with the diffuseness and intellectual paluieps of 'In Memoriam.' In the one ra.«e you have the burning breath ■ of virility ; in the other th<> foggy sigh of valetudinarianism. Yet 'In Memoriam' ' is an interesting poetic mosaic. It fell ' in, foo, with the sp-iritiial temper of its time, and expressed moods and yearnings, j by the expression of which thousands of ' its readers felt their own souls lightened, '. and raided towards a certitude which would not have come to them through Paul's words. Therefore let us be care- : ful how we judge it. But Teniryeon him- ', self was perhaps right in regarding 'Maud' ' as the cornerstone of his glory. Assuredly ■ the best of his shorter poems rank with ' the finest things in literature, and will j probably survive to the end of time es wells of refreshment for feeling hearts and liberal minds. So far as my personal spiritual life and intellectual satisfactions are concerned the 'Idylls of the King' need ' never have been wiitten, except 'Merlin and 'Vivien,' 'Guinevere,' and 'The Passing of Arthur.' These are worthy to be ; bound up with 'Maud,' the shorter master- : pieces, and the beautiful lyrics scattered through 'The Princess,' and standing elsewhere on their own feet. But the Idylls , as a whole are, far my personal taste, too , sugcestive of a milliner's showroom." ; "That," rejoined Ainslie, "is, perhaps ; the reaerm why they are co popular with women."

"Beware of cleverness, young man ; beware of cleverness. Few tilings are so likely to prove fatal to a soul's salvation or a mind's development, or more certain to lead to the facile and fatuovs infallibility of the politician, journalifct, find literary critic. Easy is the descent to Hades.'" "Well, lam -warned. But, passing Tennyson, what should be said about Browning ?" "Brownm's Imnbsr would eink anyone but himself. His work suggests a tropical forest, where there are wonderful sights and sounds, and the rarest foliage, but also much disordered luxuriance and impassability. Some of his peoms are so fine and noble that they must survive ev^n the mifavonrable conditions created for them by much of his other work, which violates that sense of proportion, that genius for form which is so essential in literature. Yet in his essence he is, perhaps, the greatest British-born genius of his time. With what firmness and clearness he portrays characters the most diverse, and how thoroughly he turns the human heart inside out in some of his poems! Still many men, and these not Philistines, would as soon chew hay and eat sawdust as read Browning; and the poet who lacks artistic surenees and r>ro--portion is damned as a poet. Apollo, the god of poetry, was the meat essentially and most harmoniously spiritual, and physically the most spiritual of all the Greek gods-; and poetry is poetry only in proportion as it resembles its deity in its spiritual integrity — its ixrward eeli-justifica-tion, arid in its perfection of form. It ie the highest order of literature, and the poet, like the gentleman, should never do anything unworthy of bis order; all his work should be- first rate after its kind. "But what is it that constitutes the first-rate in literature?" "Surely," observed the Master, "it must consist in giving perfect expression— in the fittest words in the language used by the writer, and ""n accordance with the vital humour or salient character of the tiling treated — to whatever lies on the line of the permanent and pervasive in. Nature ; Nature meaning mankind, and all that is within the scope of their experience and apprehension. " "Why," said Ainslie, "apply this dictum to poets generally, and most of them are damned for certain — as posts. How would Wordsworth fare under its application?" "No doubt he would fare badly enough in one sense, and yet gain in another," replied the Master ; "for in his case there woud be a remnant of beauty sufficient to secure his salvation. His garden and groands contain some of the loveliest flowers and finest trees in the world of literature ; but what piles of shavings, heaps of sawdust, and lumps of unhewn rock are scattered hither and thither and all round his dem^ene. In any final summing up, something similar would have to he said, too, of Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, and Byron, who have -all, more or less, marred their total effectiveness by giving way to that fatal facility which so many men of genius have for working in veins in which they cannot be, or at least never are, at their best. In my opinion, however, it is not England, but America, which supplies the supreme suggestion in this connection. Look a.t Edgar Allan Poe, and look at Walt Whatman, each so admirable — with a large qualification ; one in respect to matter, and the other manner. But the man who, with adequate genius, combines the musical charm and literary art of the one with the vivid, warm, comprehensive humanity and instinct for the universal of the other will be the poet of bis age, axul a great poet for all time." "Are these men not very remarkable ; in fact, excellent, in their respective ways? Are you not counselling an interference with Nature's work in suggesting, in regard to things so different, combination?" "Let Nature go on producing what she chooses ; as a lover of the highest literary excellence I merely say that, in my opinion, that excellence will be reached by the man who gives us work which combines the vitaMy distinctive qualities of Poe and Whitman." "Is it not wise to beware of counsels of perfection, fit for young gods bent on the goals of some heavenly Olympus, but far above halting mortals, of the earth, earthy ? Can any man, by taking thought, add one cubit to hk stature, tire leopard change his spots, or the Ethiopian his skin ; or even genius realise itself in spite of physiological structure or phy&chological bias or limitation?" "It is no doubt wise to remember all that ; j - et not le.n> wise, also, to beware of giving undue emphasis to those very questions. It is the business of genius to upset generalisation?, even about itself ; but, of course, it is s.Lso its business to discover or create beauty, and, in its creations at any rate, to exclude whatever is alien to that beauty's complete and perpetual effectiveness. When a sculptor chisels out a supreme Venus he must not present her smudged with sludge or tangled about with seaweed. ' "But it is growing lafe ; co now, goodnight, dear lad. I have enjoyed both your silence and your conversation— especially your silence ; and would I had been as silent as you — even for your sake, let alone my own credit. Good-night ; good-night."