Essays Before a Sonata Part 3

Does the progress of intrinsic beauty or truth (we a.s.sume there is such a thing) have its exposures as well as its discoveries? Does the non-acceptance of the foregoing theory mean that Wagner's substance and reality are lower and his manner higher; that his beauty was not intrinsic; that he was more interested in the repose of pride than in the truth of humility? It appears that he chose the representative instead of the spirit itself,--that he chose consciously or unconsciously, it matters not,--the lower set of values in this dualism. These are severe accusations to bring--especially when a man is a little down as Wagner is today. But these convictions were present some time before he was banished from the Metropolitan. Wagner seems to take Hugo's place in f.a.guet's criticism of de Vigny that, "The staging to him (Hugo) was the important thing--not the conception--that in de Vigny, the artist was inferior to the poet"; finally that Hugo and so Wagner have a certain pauvrete de fond. Thus would we ungenerously make Wagner prove our sum! But it is a sum that won't prove! The theory at its best does little more than suggest something, which if it is true at all, is a plat.i.tude, viz.: that progressive growth in all life makes it more and more possible for men to separate, in an art-work, moral weakness from artistic strength.

3

Human attributes are definite enough when it comes to their description, but the expression of them, or the paralleling of them in an art-process, has to be, as said above, more or less arbitrary, but we believe that their expression can be less vague if the basic distinction of this art-dualism is kept in mind. It is morally certain that the higher part is founded, as Sturt suggests, on something that has to do with those kinds of unselfish human interests which we call knowledge and morality--knowledge, not in the sense of erudition, but as a kind of creation or creative truth. This allows us to a.s.sume that the higher and more important value of this dualism is composed of what may be called reality, quality, spirit, or substance against the lower value of form, quant.i.ty, or manner. Of these terms "substance" seems to us the most appropriate, cogent, and comprehensive for the higher and "manner" for the under-value. Substance in a human-art-quality suggests the body of a conviction which has its birth in the spiritual consciousness, whose youth is nourished in the moral consciousness, and whose maturity as a result of all this growth is then represented in a mental image. This is appreciated by the intuition, and somehow translated into expression by "manner"--a process always less important than it seems, or as suggested by the foregoing (in fact we apologize for this attempted definition). So it seems that "substance" is too indefinite to a.n.a.lyze, in more specific terms. It is practically indescribable. Intuitions (artistic or not?) will sense it--process, unknown. Perhaps it is an unexplained consciousness of being nearer G.o.d, or being nearer the devil--of approaching truth or approaching unreality--a silent something felt in the truth-of-nature in Turner against the truth-of-art in Botticelli, or in the fine thinking of Ruskin against the fine soundings of Kipling, or in the wide expanse of t.i.tian against the narrow-expanse of Carpaccio, or in some such distinction that Pope sees between what he calls Homer's "invention"

and Virgil's "judgment"--apparently an inspired imagination against an artistic care, a sense of the difference, perhaps, between Dr.

Bushnell's Knowing G.o.d and knowing about G.o.d. A more vivid explanation or ill.u.s.tration may be found in the difference between Emerson and Poe.

The former seems to be almost wholly "substance" and the latter "manner." The measure in artistic satisfaction of Poe's manner is equal to the measure of spiritual satisfaction in Emerson's "substance." The total value of each man is high, but Emerson's is higher than Poe's because "substance" is higher than "manner"--because "substance" leans towards optimism, and "manner" pessimism. We do not know that all this is so, but we feel, or rather know by intuition that it is so, in the same way we know intuitively that right is higher than wrong, though we can't always tell why a thing is right or wrong, or what is always the difference or the margin between right and wrong.

Beauty, in its common conception, has nothing to do with it (substance), unless it be granted that its outward aspect, or the expression between sensuous beauty and spiritual beauty can be always and distinctly known, which it cannot, as the art of music is still in its infancy. On reading this over, it seems only decent that some kind of an apology be made for the beginning of the preceding sentence. It cannot justly be said that anything that has to do with art has nothing to do with beauty in any degree,--that is, whether beauty is there or not, it has something to do with it. A casual idea of it, a kind of a first necessary-physical impression, was what we had in mind. Probably n.o.body knows what actual beauty is--except those serious writers of humorous essays in art magazines, who accurately, but kindly, with club in hand, demonstrate for all time and men that beauty is a quadratic monomial; that it _is_ absolute; that it is relative; that it _is _not_ relative, that it _is _not_... The word "beauty" is as easy to use as the word "degenerate." Both come in handy when one does or does not agree with you. For our part, something that Roussel-Despierres says comes nearer to what we like to think beauty is ... "an infinite source of good ... the love of the beautiful ... a constant anxiety for moral beauty." Even here we go around in a circle--a thing apparently inevitable, if one tries to reduce art to philosophy. But personally, we prefer to go around in a circle than around in a parallelepipedon, for it seems cleaner and perhaps freer from mathematics--or for the same reason we prefer Whittier to Baudelaire--a poet to a genius, or a healthy to a rotten apple--probably not so much because it is more nutritious, but because we like its taste better; we like the beautiful and don't like the ugly; therefore, what we like is beautiful, and what we don't like is ugly--and hence we are glad the beautiful is not ugly, for if it were we would like something we don't like. So having unsettled what beauty is, let us go on.

At any rate, we are going to be arbitrary enough to claim, with no definite qualification, that substance can be expressed in music, and that it is the only valuable thing in it, and moreover that in two separate pieces of music in which the notes are almost identical, one can be of "substance" with little "manner," and the other can be of "manner" with little "substance." Substance has something to do with character. Manner has nothing to do with it. The "substance" of a tune comes from somewhere near the soul, and the "manner" comes from--G.o.d knows where.

4

The lack of interest to preserve, or ability to perceive the fundamental divisions of this duality accounts to a large extent, we believe, for some or many various phenomena (pleasant or unpleasant according to the personal att.i.tude) of modern art, and all art. It is evidenced in many ways--the sculptors' over-insistence on the "mold,"

the outer rather than the inner subject or content of his statue--over-enthusiasm for local color--over-interest in the multiplicity of techniques, in the idiomatic, in the effect as shown, by the appreciation of an audience rather than in the effect on the ideals of the inner conscience of the artist or the composer. This lack of perceiving is too often shown by an over-interest in the material value of the effect. The pose of self-absorption, which some men, in the advertising business (and incidentally in the recital and composing business) put into their photographs or the portraits of themselves, while all dolled up in their purple-dressing-gowns, in their twofold wealth of golden hair, in their cissy-like postures over the piano keys--this pose of "manner" sometimes sounds out so loud that the more their music is played, the less it is heard. For does not Emerson tell them this when he says "What you are talks so loud, that I cannot hear what you say"? The unescapable impression that one sometimes gets by a glance at these public-inflicted trade-marks, and without having heard or seen any of their music, is that the one great underlying desire of these appearing-artists, is to impress, perhaps startle and shock their audiences and at any cost. This may have some such effect upon some of the lady-part (male or female) of their listeners but possibly the members of the men-part, who as boys liked hockey better than birthday-parties, may feel like shocking a few of these picture-sitters with something stronger than their own forzandos.

The insistence upon manner in its relation to local color is wider than a self-strain for effect. If local color is a natural part, that is, a part of substance, the art-effort cannot help but show its color--and it will be a true color, no matter how colored; if it is a part, even a natural part of "manner," either the color part is bound eventually to drive out the local part or the local drive out all color. Here a process of cancellation or destruction is going on--a kind of "compromise" which destroys by deadlock; a compromise purchasing a selfish pleasure--a decadence in which art becomes first dull, then dark, then dead, though throughout this process it is outwardly very much alive,--especially after it is dead. The same tendency may even be noticed if there is over-insistence upon the national in art. Substance tends to create affection; manner prejudice. The latter tends to efface the distinction between the love of both a country's virtue and vices, and the love of only the virtue. A true love of country is likely to be so big that it will embrace the virtue one sees in other countries and, in the same breath, so to speak. A composer born in America, but who has not been interested in the "cause of the Freedmen," may be so interested in "negro melodies," that he writes a symphony over them. He is conscious (perhaps only subconscious) that he wishes it to be "American music." He tries to forget that the paternal negro came from Africa. Is his music American or African? That is the great question which keeps him awake! But the sadness of it is, that if he had been born in Africa, his music might have been just as American, for there is good authority that an African soul under an X-ray looks identically like an American soul. There is a futility in selecting a certain type to represent a "whole," unless the interest in the spirit of the type coincides with that of the whole. In other words, if this composer isn't as deeply interested in the "cause" as Wendell Phillips was, when he fought his way through that anti-abolitionist crowd at Faneuil Hall, his music is liable to be less American than he wishes. If a middle-aged man, upon picking up the Scottish Chiefs, finds that his boyhood enthusiasm for the prowess and n.o.ble deeds and character of Sir Wm. Wallace and of Bruce is still present, let him put, or try to put that glory into an overture, let him fill it chuck-full of Scotch tunes, if he will. But after all is said and sung he will find that his music is American to the core (a.s.suming that he is an American and wishes his music to be). It will be as national in character as the heart of that Grand Army Grandfather, who read those Cragmore Tales of a summer evening, when that boy had brought the cows home without witching. Perhaps the memories of the old soldier, to which this man still holds tenderly, may be turned into a "strain" or a "sonata," and though the music does not contain, or even suggest any of the old war-songs, it will be as sincerely American as the subject, provided his (the composer's) interest, spirit, and character sympathize with, or intuitively coincide with that of the subject.

Again, if a man finds that the cadences of an Apache war-dance come nearest to his soul, provided he has taken pains to know enough other cadences--for eclecticism is part of his duty--sorting potatoes means a better crop next year--let him a.s.similate whatever he finds highest of the Indian ideal, so that he can use it with the cadences, fervently, transcendentally, inevitably, furiously, in his symphonies, in his operas, in his whistlings on the way to work, so that he can paint his house with them--make them a part of his prayer-book--this is all possible and necessary, if he is confident that they have a part in his spiritual consciousness. With this a.s.surance his music will have everything it should of sincerity, n.o.bility, strength, and beauty, no matter how it sounds; and if, with this, he is true to none but the highest of American ideals (that is, the ideals only that coincide with his spiritual consciousness) his music will be true to itself and incidentally American, and it will be so even after it is proved that all our Indians came from Asia.

The man "born down to Babbitt's Corners," may find a deep appeal in the simple but acute "Gospel Hymns of the New England camp meetin'," of a generation or so ago. He finds in them--some of them--a vigor, a depth of feeling, a natural-soil rhythm, a sincerity, emphatic but inartistic, which, in spite of a vociferous sentimentality, carries him nearer the "Christ of the people" than does the Te Deum of the greatest cathedral. These tunes have, for him, a truer ring than many of those groove-made, even-measured, monotonous, non-rhythmed, indoor-smelling, priest-taught, academic, English or neo-English hymns (and anthems)--well-written, well-harmonized things, well-voice-led, well-counterpointed, well-corrected, and well O.K.'d, by well corrected Mus. Bac. R.F.O.G.'s-personified sounds, correct and inevitable to sight and hearing--in a word, those proper forms of stained-gla.s.s beauty, which our over-drilled mechanisms-boy-choirs are limited to.

But, if the Yankee can reflect the fervency with which "his gospels"

were sung--the fervency of "Aunt Sarah," who scrubbed her life away, for her brother's ten orphans, the fervency with which this woman, after a fourteen-hour work day on the farm, would hitch up and drive five miles, through the mud and rain to "prayer meetin'"--her one articulate outlet for the fullness of her unselfish soul--if he can reflect the fervency of such a spirit, he may find there a local color that will do all the world good. If his music can but catch that "spirit" by being a part with itself, it will come somewhere near his ideal--and it will be American, too, perhaps nearer so than that of the devotee of Indian or negro melody. In other words, if local color, national color, any color, is a true pigment of the universal color, it is a divine quality, it is a part of substance in art--not of manner.

The preceding ill.u.s.trations are but attempts to show that whatever excellence an artist sees in life, a community, in a people, or in any valuable object or experience, if sincerely and intuitively reflected in his work, and so he himself, is, in a way, a reflected part of that excellence. Whether he be accepted or rejected, whether his music is always played, or never played--all this has nothing to do with it--it is true or false by his own measure. If we may be permitted to leave out two words, and add a few more, a sentence of Hegel appears to sum up this idea, "The universal need for expression in art lies in man's rational impulse to exalt the inner ... world (i.e., the highest ideals he sees in the inner life of others) together with what he finds in his own life--into a spiritual consciousness for himself." The artist does feel or does not feel that a sympathy has been approved by an artistic intuition and so reflected in his work. Whether he feels this sympathy is true or not in the final a.n.a.lysis, is a thing probably that no one but he (the artist) knows but the truer he feels it, the more substance it has, or as Sturt puts it, "his work is art, so long as he feels in doing it as true artists feel, and so long as his object is akin to the objects that true artists admire."

Dr. Griggs in an Essay on Debussy, [John C. Griggs, "Debussy" Yale Review, 1914] asks if this composer's content is worthy the manner.

Perhaps so, perhaps not--Debussy himself, doubtless, could not give a positive answer. He would better know how true his feeling and sympathy was, and anyone else's personal opinion can be of but little help here.

We might offer the suggestion that Debussy's content would have been worthier his manner, if he had hoed corn or sold newspapers for a living, for in this way he might have gained a deeper vitality and truer theme to sing at night and of a Sunday. Or we might say that what substance there is, is "too coherent"--it is too clearly expressed in the first thirty seconds. There you have the "whole fragment," a translucent syllogism, but then the reality, the spirit, the substance stops and the "form," the "perfume," the "manner," shimmer right along, as the soapsuds glisten after one has finished washing. Or we might say that his substance would have been worthier, if his adoration or contemplation of Nature, which is often a part of it, and which rises to great heights, as is felt for example, in La Mer, had been more the quality of Th.o.r.eau's. Debussy's att.i.tude toward Nature seems to have a kind of sensual sensuousness underlying it, while Th.o.r.eau's is a kind of spiritual sensuousness. It is rare to find a farmer or peasant whose enthusiasm for the beauty in Nature finds outward expression to compare with that of the city-man who comes out for a Sunday in the country, but Th.o.r.eau is that rare country-man and Debussy the city-man with his weekend flights into country-aesthetics. We would be inclined to say that Th.o.r.eau leaned towards substance and Debussy towards manner.

5

There comes from Concord, an offer to every mind--the choice between repose and truth, and G.o.d makes the offer. "Take which you please ... between these, as a pendulum, man oscillates. He in whom the love of repose predominates will accept the first creed, the first philosophy, the first political party he meets," most likely his father's. He gets rest, commodity, and reputation. Here is another aspect of art-duality, but it is more drastic than ours, as it would eliminate one part or the other. A man may aim as high as Beethoven or as high as Richard Strauss. In the former case the shot may go far below the mark; in truth, it has not been reached since that "thunder storm of 1828" and there is little chance that it will be reached by anyone living today, but that matters not, the shot will never rebound and destroy the marksman. But, in the latter case, the shot may often hit the mark, but as often rebound and harden, if not destroy, the shooter's heart--even his soul. What matters it, men say, he will then find rest, commodity, and reputation--what matters it--if he find there but few perfect truths--what matters (men say)--he will find there perfect media, those perfect instruments of getting in the way of perfect truths.

This choice tells why Beethoven is always modern and Strauss always mediaeval--try as he may to cover it up in new bottles. He has chosen to capitalize a "talent"--he has chosen the complexity of media, the shining hardness of externals, repose, against the inner, invisible activity of truth. He has chosen the first creed, the easy creed, the philosophy of his fathers, among whom he found a half-idiot-genius (Nietzsche). His choice naturally leads him to glorify and to magnify all kind of dull things--stretched-out geigermusik--which in turn naturally leads him to "windmills" and "human heads on silver platters." Magnifying the dull into the colossal, produces a kind of "comfort"--the comfort of a woman who takes more pleasure in the fit of fashionable clothes than in a healthy body--the kind of comfort that has brought so many "adventures of baby-carriages at county fairs"--"the sensation of Teddy bears, smoking their first cigarette"--on the program of symphony orchestras of one hundred performers,--the lure of the media--the means--not the end--but the finish,--thus the failure to perceive that thoughts and memories of childhood are too tender, and some of them too sacred to be worn lightly on the sleeve. Life is too short for these one hundred men, to say nothing of the composer and the "dress-circle," to spend an afternoon in this way. They are but like the rest of us, and have only the expectancy of the mortality-table to survive--perhaps only this "piece." We cannot but feel that a too great desire for "repose"

accounts for such phenomena. A MS. score is brought to a concertmaster--he may be a violinist--he is kindly disposed, he looks it over, and casually fastens on a pa.s.sage "that's bad for the fiddles, it doesn't hang just right, write it like this, they will play it better." But that one phrase is the germ of the whole thing. "Never mind, it will fit the hand better this way--it will sound better." My G.o.d! what has sound got to do with music! The waiter brings the only fresh egg he has, but the man at breakfast sends it back because it doesn't fit his eggcup. Why can't music go out in the same way it comes in to a man, without having to crawl over a fence of sounds, thoraxes, catguts, wire, wood, and bra.s.s? Consecutive-fifths are as harmless as blue laws compared with the relentless tyranny of the "media." The instrument!--there is the perennial difficulty--there is music's limitations. Why must the scarecrow of the keyboard--the tyrant in terms of the mechanism (be it Caruso or a Jew's-harp) stare into every measure? Is it the composer's fault that man has only ten fingers? Why can't a musical thought be presented as it is born--perchance "a b.a.s.t.a.r.d of the slums," or a "daughter of a bishop"--and if it happens to go better later on a ba.s.s-drum (than upon a harp) get a good ba.s.s-drummer. [Footnote: The first movement (Emerson) of the music, which is the cause of all these words, was first thought of (we believe) in terms of a large orchestra, the second (Hawthorne) in terms of a piano or a dozen pianos, the third (Alcotts)--of an organ (or piano with voice or violin), and the last (Th.o.r.eau), in terms of strings, colored possibly with a flute or horn.] That music must be heard, is not essential--what it sounds like may not be what it is.

Perhaps the day is coming when music--believers will learn "that silence is a solvent ... that gives us leave to be universal" rather than personal.

Some fiddler was once honest or brave enough, or perhaps ignorant enough, to say that Beethoven didn't know how to write for the violin,--that, maybe, is one of the many reasons Beethoven is not a Vieuxtemps. Another man says Beethoven's piano sonatas are not pianistic--with a little effort, perhaps, Beethoven could have become a Thalberg. His symphonies are perfect-truths and perfect for the orchestra of 1820--but Mahler could have made them--possibly did make them--we will say, "more perfect," as far as their media clothes are concerned, and Beethoven is today big enough to rather like it. He is probably in the same amiable state of mind that the Jesuit priest said, "G.o.d was in," when He looked down on the camp ground and saw the priest sleeping with a Congregational Chaplain. Or in the same state of mind you'll be in when you look down and see the s.e.xton keeping your tombstone up to date. The truth of Joachim offsets the repose of Paganini and Kubelik. The repose and reputation of a successful pianist--(whatever that means) who plays Chopin so cleverly that he covers up a sensuality, and in such a way that the purest-minded see nothing but sensuous beauty in it, which, by the way, doesn't disturb him as much as the size of his income-tax--the repose and fame of this man is offset by the truth and obscurity of the village organist who plays Lowell Mason and Bach with such affection that he would give his life rather than lose them. The truth and courage of this organist, who risks his job, to fight the prejudice of the congregation, offset the repose and large salary of a more celebrated choirmaster, who holds his job by lowering his ideals, who is willing to let the organ smirk under an insipid, easy-sounding barcarolle for the offertory, who is willing to please the sentimental ears of the music committee (and its wives)--who is more willing to observe these forms of politeness than to stand up for a stronger and deeper music of simple devotion, and for a service of a spiritual unity, the kind of thing that Mr. Bossitt, who owns the biggest country place, the biggest bank, and the biggest "House of G.o.d" in town (for is it not the divine handiwork of his own-pocketbook)--the kind of music that this man, his wife, and his party (of property right in pews) can't stand because it isn't "pretty."

The doctrine of this "choice" may be extended to the distinction between literal-enthusiasm and natural-enthusiasm (right or wrong notes, good or bad tones against good or bad interpretation, good or bad sentiment) or between observation and introspection, or to the distinction between remembering and dreaming. Strauss remembers, Beethoven dreams. We see this distinction also in Goethe's confusion of the moral with the intellectual. There is no such confusion in Beethoven--to him they are one. It is told, and the story is so well known that we hesitate to repeat it here, that both these men were standing in the street one day when the Emperor drove by--Goethe, like the rest of the crowd, bowed and uncovered--but Beethoven stood bolt upright, and refused even to salute, saying: "Let him bow to us, for ours is a n.o.bler empire." Goethe's mind knew this was true, but his moral courage was not instinctive.

This remembering faculty of "repose," throws the mind in unguarded moments quite naturally towards "manner" and thus to the many things the media can do. It brings on an itching to over-use them--to be original (if anyone will tell what that is) with nothing but numbers to be original with. We are told that a conductor (of the orchestra) has written a symphony requiring an orchestra of one hundred and fifty men.

If his work perhaps had one hundred and fifty valuable ideas, the one hundred and fifty men might be justifiable--but as it probably contains not more than a dozen, the composer may be unconsciously ashamed of them, and glad to cover them up under a hundred and fifty men. A man may become famous because he is able to eat nineteen dinners a day, but posterity will decorate his stomach, not his brain.

Manner breeds a cussed-cleverness--only to be clever--a satellite of super-industrialism, and perhaps to be witty in the bargain, not the wit in mother-wit, but a kind of indoor, artificial, mental arrangement of things quickly put together and which have been learned and studied--it is of the material and stays there, while humor is of the emotional and of the approaching spiritual. Even Dukas, and perhaps other Gauls, in their critical heart of hearts, may admit that "wit" in music, is as impossible as "wit" at a funeral. The wit is evidence of its lack. Mark Twain could be humorous at the death of his dearest friend, but in such a way as to put a blessing into the heart of the bereaved. Humor in music has the same possibilities. But its quant.i.ty has a serious effect on its quality, "inverse ratio" is a good formula to adopt here. Comedy has its part, but wit never. Strauss is at his best in these lower rooms, but his comedy reminds us more of the physical fun of Lever rather than "comedy in the Meredithian sense" as Mason suggests. Meredith is a little too deep or too subtle for Strauss--unless it be granted that cynicism is more a part of comedy than a part of refined-insult. Let us also remember that Mr. Disston, not Mr. Strauss, put the funny notes in the ba.s.soon. A symphony written only to amuse and entertain is likely to amuse only the writer--and him not long after the check is cashed.

"Genius is always ascetic and piety and love," thus Emerson reinforces "G.o.d's offer of this choice" by a transcendental definition. The moment a famous violinist refused "to appear" until he had received his check,--at that moment, precisely (a.s.suming for argument's sake, that this was the first time that materialism had the ascendancy in this man's soul) at that moment he became but a man of "talent"--incidentally, a small man and a small violinist, regardless of how perfectly he played, regardless to what heights of emotion he stirred his audience, regardless of the sublimity of his artistic and financial success.

d'Annunzio, it is told, becoming somewhat discouraged at the result of some of his Fiume adventures said: "We are the only Idealists left."

This remark may have been made in a moment of careless impulse, but if it is taken at its face value, the moment it was made that moment his idealism started downhill. A grasp at monopoly indicates that a sudden shift has taken place from the heights where genius may be found, to the lower plains of talent. The mind of a true idealist is great enough to know that a monopoly of idealism or of wheat is a thing nature does not support.

A newspaper music column prints an incident (so how can we a.s.sume that it is not true?) of an American violinist who called on Max Reger, to tell him how much he (the American) appreciated his music. Reger gives him a hopeless look and cries: "What! a musician and not speak German!"

At that moment, by the clock, regardless of how great a genius he may have been before that sentence was uttered--at that moment he became but a man of "talent." "For the man of talent affects to call his transgressions of the laws of sense trivial and to count them nothing considered with his devotion to his art." His art never taught him prejudice or to wear only one eye. "His art is less for every deduction from his holiness and less for every defect of common sense." And this common sense has a great deal to do with this distinguishing difference of Emerson's between genius and talent, repose and truth, and between all evidences of substance and manner in art. Manner breeds partialists. "Is America a musical nation?"--if the man who is ever asking this question would sit down and think something over he might find less interest in asking it--he might possibly remember that all nations are more musical than any nation, especially the nation that pays the most--and pays the most eagerly, for anything, after it has been professionally-rubber stamped. Music may be yet unborn. Perhaps no music has ever been written or heard. Perhaps the birth of art will take place at the moment, in which the last man, who is willing to make a living out of art is gone and gone forever. In the history of this youthful world the best product that human-beings can boast of is probably, Beethoven--but, maybe, even his art is as nothing in comparison with the future product of some coal-miner's soul in the forty-first century. And the same man who is ever asking about the most musical nation, is ever discovering the most musical man of the most musical nation. When particularly hysterical he shouts, "I have found him! Smith Grabholz--the one great American poet,--at last, here is the Moses the country has been waiting for"--(of course we all know that the country has not been waiting for anybody--and we have many Moses always with us). But the discoverer keeps right on shouting "Here is the one true American poetry, I p.r.o.nounce it the work of a genius. I predict for him the most brilliant career--for his is an art that...--for his is a soul that ... for his is a..." and Grabholz is ruined;--but ruined, not alone, by this perennial discoverer of pearls in any oyster-sh.e.l.l that treats him the best, but ruined by his own (Grabholz's) talent,--for genius will never let itself be discovered by "a man." Then the world may ask "Can the one true national "this" or "that" be killed by its own discoverer?" "No," the country replies, "but each discovery is proof of another impossibility." It is a sad fact that the one true man and the one true art will never behave as they should except in the mind of the partialist whom G.o.d has forgotten. But this matters little to him (the man)--his business is good--for it is easy to sell the future in terms of the past--and there are always some who will buy anything. The individual usually "gains"

if he is willing to but lean on "manner." The evidence of this is quite widespread, for if the discoverer happens to be in any other line of business his sudden discoveries would be just as important--to him. In fact, the theory of substance and manner in art and its related dualisms, "repose and truth, genius and talent," &c., may find ill.u.s.tration in many, perhaps most, of the human activities. And when examined it (the ill.u.s.tration) is quite likely to show how "manner" is always discovering partisans. For example, enthusiastic discoveries of the "paragon" are common in politics--an art to some. These revelations, in this profession are made easy by the pre-election discovering-leaders of the people. And the genius who is discovered, forthwith starts his speeches of "talent"--though they are hardly that--they are hardly more than a string of subplat.i.tudes, square-looking, well-rigged things that almost everybody has seen, known, and heard since Rome or man fell. Nevertheless these signs of perfect manner, these series of n.o.ble sentiments that the "n.o.ble" never get off, are forcibly, clearly, and persuasively handed out--eloquently, even beautifully expressed, and with such personal charm, magnetism, and strength, that their profound messages speed right through the minds and hearts, without as much as spattering the walls, and land right square in the middle of the listener's vanity.

For all this is a part of manner and its quality is of splendor--for manner is at times a good bluff but substance a poor one and knows it.

The discovered one's usual and first great outburst is probably the greatest truth that he ever utters. Fearlessly standing, he looks straight into the eyes of the populace and with a strong ringing voice (for strong voices and strong statesmanship are inseparable) and with words far more eloquent than the following, he sings "This honor is greater than I deserve but duty calls me--(what, not stated)... If elected, I shall be your servant" ... (for, it is told, that he believes in modesty,--that he has even boasted that he is the most modest man in the country)... Thus he has the right to shout, "First, last and forever I am for the people. I am against all bosses. I have no sympathy for politicians. I am for strict economy, liberal improvements and justice! I am also for the--ten commandments" (his intuitive political sagacity keeps him from mentioning any particular one).--But a sublime height is always reached in his perorations. Here we learn that he believes in honesty--(repeat "honesty");--we are even allowed to infer that he is one of the very few who know that there is such a thing; and we also learn that since he was a little boy (barefoot) his motto has been "Do Right,"--he swerves not from the right!--he believes in nothing but the right; (to him--everything is right!--if it gets him elected); but cheers invariably stop this great final truth (in brackets) from rising to animate expression. Now all of these translucent axioms are true (are not axioms always true?),--as far as manner is concerned. In other words, the manner functions perfectly. But where is the divine substance? This is not there--why should it be--if it were he might not be there. "Substance" is not featured in this discovery. For the truth of substance is sometimes silence, sometimes ellipses,--and the latter if supplied might turn some of the declarations above into perfect truths,--for instance "first and last and forever I am for the people ('s votes). I'm against all bosses (against me). I have no sympathy for (rival) politicians,"

etc., etc. But these tedious attempts at comedy should stop,--they're too serious,--besides the ill.u.s.tration may be a little hard on a few, the minority (the non-people) though not on the many, the majority (the people)! But even an a.s.sumed parody may help to show what a power manner is for reaction unless it is counterbalanced and then saturated by the other part of the duality. Thus it appears that all there is to this great discovery is that one good politician has discovered another good politician. For manner has brought forth its usual talent;--for manner cannot discover the genius who has discarded plat.i.tudes--the genius who has devised a new and surpa.s.sing order for mankind, simple and intricate enough, abstract and definite enough, locally impractical and universally practical enough, to wipe out the need for further discoveries of "talent" and incidentally the discoverer's own fortune and political "manner." Furthermore, he (this genius) never will be discovered until the majority-spirit, the common-heart, the human-oversoul, the source of all great values, converts all talent into genius, all manner into substance--until the direct expression of the mind and soul of the majority, the divine right of all consciousness, social, moral, and spiritual, discloses the one true art and thus finally discovers the one true leader--even itself:--then no leaders, no politicians, no manner, will hold sway--and no more speeches will be heard.

The intensity today, with which techniques and media are organized and used, tends to throw the mind away from a "common sense" and towards "manner" and thus to resultant weak and mental states--for example, the Byronic fallacy--that one who is full of turbid feeling about himself is qualified to be some sort of an artist. In this relation "manner"

also leads some to think that emotional sympathy for self is as true a part of art as sympathy for others; and a prejudice in favor of the good and bad of one personality against the virtue of many personalities. It may be that when a poet or a whistler becomes conscious that he is in the easy path of any particular idiom,--that he is helplessly prejudiced in favor of any particular means of expression,--that his manner can be catalogued as modern or cla.s.sic,--that he favors a contrapuntal groove, a sound-coloring one, a sensuous one, a successful one, or a melodious one (whatever that means),--that his interests lie in the French school or the German school, or the school of Saturn,--that he is involved in this particular "that" or that particular "this," or in any particular brand of emotional complexes,--in a word, when he becomes conscious that his style is "his personal own,"--that it has monopolized a geographical part of the world's sensibilities, then it may be that the value of his substance is not growing,--that it even may have started on its way backwards,--it may be that he is trading an inspiration for a bad habit and finally that he is reaching fame, permanence, or some other under-value, and that he is getting farther and farther from a perfect truth. But, on the contrary side of the picture, it is not unreasonable to imagine that if he (this poet, composer, and laborer) is open to all the overvalues within his reach,--if he stands unprotected from all the showers of the absolute which may beat upon him,--if he is willing to use or learn to use, or at least if he is not afraid of trying to use, whatever he can, of any and all lessons of the infinite that humanity has received and thrown to man,--that nature has exposed and sacrificed, that life and death have translated--if he accepts all and sympathizes with all, is influenced by all, whether consciously or sub-consciously, drastically or humbly, audibly or inaudibly, whether it be all the virtue of Satan or the only evil of Heaven--and all, even, at one time, even in one chord,--then it may be that the value of his substance, and its value to himself, to his art, to all art, even to the Common Soul is growing and approaching nearer and nearer to perfect truths--whatever they are and wherever they may be.

Again, a certain kind of manner-over-influence may be caused by a group-disease germ. The over-influence by, the over-admiration of, and the over-a.s.sociation with a particular artistic personality or a particular type or group of personalities tends to produce equally favorable and unfavorable symptoms, but the unfavorable ones seem to be more contagious. Perhaps the impulse remark of some famous man (whose name we forget) that he "loved music but hated musicians," might be followed (with some good results) at least part of the time. To see the sun rise, a man has but to get up early, and he can always have Bach in his pocket. We hear that Mr. Smith or Mr. Morgan, etc., et al. design to establish a "course at Rome," to raise the standard of American music, (or the standard of American composers--which is it?) but possibly the more our composer accepts from his patrons "et al." the less he will accept from himself. It may be possible that a day in a "Kansas wheat field" will do more for him than three years in Rome. It may be, that many men--perhaps some of genius--(if you won't admit that all are geniuses) have been started on the downward path of subsidy by trying to write a thousand dollar prize poem or a ten thousand dollar prize opera. How many masterpieces have been prevented from blossoming in this way? A c.o.c.ktail will make a man eat more, but will not give him a healthy, normal appet.i.te (if he had not that already). If a bishop should offer a "prize living" to the curate who will love G.o.d the hardest for fifteen days, whoever gets the prize would love G.o.d the least. Such stimulants, it strikes us, tend to industrialize art, rather than develop a spiritual st.u.r.diness--a st.u.r.diness which Mr.

Sedgwick says [footnote: H. D. Sedgwick. The New American Type.

Riverside Press.] "shows itself in a close union between spiritual life and the ordinary business of life," against spiritual feebleness which "shows itself in the separation of the two." If one's spiritual st.u.r.diness is congenital and somewhat perfect he is not only conscious that this separation has no part in his own soul, but he does not feel its existence in others. He does not believe there is such a thing. But perfection in this respect is rare. And for the most of us, we believe, this st.u.r.diness would be encouraged by anything that will keep or help us keep a normal balance between the spiritual life and the ordinary life. If for every thousand dollar prize a potato field be subst.i.tuted, so that these candidates of "Clio" can dig a little in real life, perhaps dig up a natural inspiration, arts--air might be a little clearer--a little freer from certain traditional delusions, for instance, that free thought and free love always go to the same cafe--that atmosphere and diligence are synonymous. To quote Th.o.r.eau incorrectly: "When half-G.o.ds talk, the G.o.ds walk!" Everyone should have the opportunity of not being over-influenced.

Again, this over-influence by and over-insistence upon "manner" may finally lead some to believe "that manner for manner's sake is a basis of music." Someone is quoted as saying that "ragtime is the true American music." Anyone will admit that it is one of the many true, natural, and, nowadays, conventional means of expression. It is an idiom, perhaps a "set or series of colloquialisms," similar to those that have added through centuries and through natural means, some beauty to all languages. Every language is but the evolution of slang, and possibly the broad "A" in Harvard may have come down from the "butcher of Southwark." To examine ragtime rhythms and the syncopations of Schumann or of Brahms seems to the writer to show how much alike they are not. Ragtime, as we hear it, is, of course, more (but not much more) than a natural dogma of shifted accents, or a mixture of shifted and minus accents. It is something like wearing a derby hat on the back of the head, a shuffling lilt of a happy soul just let out of a Baptist Church in old Alabama. Ragtime has its possibilities. But it does not "represent the American nation" any more than some fine old senators represent it. Perhaps we know it now as an ore before it has been refined into a product. It may be one of nature's ways of giving art raw material. Time will throw its vices away and weld its virtues into the fabric of our music. It has its uses as the cruet on the boarding-house table has, but to make a meal of tomato ketchup and horse-radish, to plant a whole farm with sunflowers, even to put a sunflower into every bouquet, would be calling nature something worse than a politician. Mr. Daniel Gregory Mason, whose wholesome influence, by the way, is doing as much perhaps for music in America as American music is, amusingly says: "If indeed the land of Lincoln and Emerson has degenerated until nothing remains of it but a 'jerk and rattle,'

then we, at least, are free to repudiate this false patriotism of 'my Country right or wrong,' to insist that better than bad music is no music, and to let our beloved art subside finally under the clangor of the subway gongs and automobile horns, dead, but not dishonored." And so may we ask: Is it better to sing inadequately of the "leaf on Walden floating," and die "dead but not dishonored," or to sing adequately of the "cherry on the c.o.c.ktail," and live forever?

6

If anyone has been strong enough to escape these rocks--this "Scylla and Charybdis,"--has survived these wrong choices, these under-values with their prizes, Bohemias and heroes, is not such a one in a better position, is he not abler and freer to "declare himself and so to love his cause so singly that he will cleave to it, and forsake all else?

What is this cause for the American composer but the utmost musical beauty that he, as an individual man, with his own qualities and defects, is capable of understanding and striving towards?--forsaking all else except those types of musical beauty that come home to him,"

[footnote: Contemporary Composers, D. G. Mason, Macmillan Co., N. Y.]

and that his spiritual conscience intuitively approves.

"It matters not one jot, provided this course of personal loyalty to a cause be steadfastly pursued, what the special characteristics of the style of the music may be to which one gives one's devotion."

[footnote: Contemporary Composers, D. G. Mason, Macmillan Co., N. Y.]

This, if over-translated, may be made to mean, what we have been trying to say--that if your interest, enthusiasm, and devotion on the side of substance and truth, are of the stuff to make you so sincere that you sweat--to h.e.l.l with manner and repose! Mr. Mason is responsible for too many young minds, in their planting season to talk like this, to be as rough, or to go as far, but he would probably admit that, broadly speaking--some such way, i.e., constantly recognizing this ideal duality in art, though not the most profitable road for art to travel, is almost its only way out to eventual freedom and salvation. Sidney Lanier, in a letter to Bayard Taylor writes: "I have so many fair dreams and hopes about music in these days (1875). It is gospel whereof the people are in great need. As Christ gathered up the Ten Commandments and redistilled them into the clear liquid of the wondrous eleventh--love G.o.d utterly and thy neighbor as thyself--so I think the time will come when music rightly developed to its now little forseen grandeur will be found to be a late revelation of all gospels in one."

Could the art of music, or the art of anything have a more profound reason for being than this? A conception unlimited by the narrow names of Christian, Pagan, Jew, or Angel! A vision higher and deeper than art itself!

7

The humblest composer will not find true humility in aiming low--he must never be timid or afraid of trying to express that which he feels is far above his power to express, any more than he should be afraid of breaking away, when necessary, from easy first sounds, or afraid of admitting that those half truths that come to him at rare intervals, are half true, for instance, that all art galleries contain masterpieces, which are nothing more than a history of art's beautiful mistakes. He should never fear of being called a high-brow--but not the kind in Prof. Brander Matthews' definition. John L. Sullivan was a "high-brow" in his art. A high-brow can always whip a low-brow.

If he "truly seeks," he "will surely find" many things to sustain him.

He can go to a part of Alcott's philosophy--"that all occupations of man's body and soul in their diversity come from but one mind and soul!" If he feels that to subscribe to all of the foregoing and then submit, though not as evidence, the work of his own hands is presumptuous, let him remember that a man is not always responsible for the wart on his face, or a girl for the bloom on her cheek, and as they walk out of a Sunday for an airing, people will see them--but they must have the air. He can remember with Plotinus, "that in every human soul there is the ray of the celestial beauty," and therefore every human outburst may contain a partial ray. And he can believe that it is better to go to the plate and strike out than to hold the bench down, for by facing the pitcher, he may then know the umpire better, and possibly see a new parabola. His presumption, if it be that, may be but a kind of courage juvenal sings about, and no harm can then be done either side. "Cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator."