Eighth Meeting
Henry came several days ago to tell me he would be unable to attend this meeting, as he was going to Washington. “I will think of the subject we were going to discuss,” he said.
I opened the meeting with Marian’s paper:
“At a meeting of the Seekers, held on November 22d, we discussed the relation which our previous discussions had to Art. We set up a standard for judging Art, and agreed that a good piece of Art is one that makes us feel that unity and completeness for which we are striving. Two things are necessary, a good thought and good workmanship. We also said that details in Art, particularly in painting, are bad because they distract us, and we don’t see the picture as a whole. I was very glad to have a standard by which to judge Art.”
I said to her that I hardly thought she could already have that standard.
“No,” she said, “but I am going to get it.”
Then I read Virginia’s paper:
“Art as it is connected with our previous discussions:
“When an artist dies he leaves behind him all the beautiful ideas he has put on his canvas, or in his books. To be a true artist one must possess an idea of the beautiful, and also be sympathetic with all his fellow beings. Not only humans, but flowers and beasts also. A person who possesses these qualities is a genius. But to be an artist one must also have talent. Either he must have a talent for writing, music or painting, or he cannot express the genius within himself.
“This sympathy, this love, is something we cannot explain. And so we call it the soul, because it is a puzzle, and we do not know what it is. Everybody possesses some of it, even the most heartless. It may be the love of a plant or dumb animal, but still it is love for a fellow creature. So all of us possess genius, though few of us are artists.”
Next I read Alfred’s paper:
“On Sunday, the 22d, we discussed the subject of art. We said that for a thing to be high art it must be pleasing to the eye or ear, and complete in itself; that is, the artist or composer must so construct his work that it will fully express some idea. In painting a picture an artist may choose to convey some gruesome idea, and do so perfectly, but that will not be high art, because it will be displeasing to the eye.
“It may also be applied to books; if the author tells something so well that it gives the reader a perfect picture of the thought, the writing may be considered a good one.”
I said I could tell by Alfred’s paper that he had not grasped just what was the object of art. The children repeated that it symbolized the unity for which we longed. I asked, did they see why we took up this subject of art at all, what it had to do with religion? Marian had said, before the others came, that it was the expression of our religion. Virginia now used almost the same words, and Alfred, speaking after her, said it in such a way as to make me believe he understood.
I replied, this was true; art was the service of religion, the expression of that sense of oneness with the world which can speak only in creations, because life is an endless creation. Beauty, I said, seemed to me the perfect symbol of truth, of completeness and symmetry. I quoted the lines from Keats:
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
“The subject of beauty always puzzles me,” said Ruth, “because beautiful things so often are not good. Take the ocean, for instance. It is so beautiful; it gives us above all things the sense of immensity and harmony. And yet, think how cruel it is! Think of the shipwrecks and the suffering!”
“It is not the ocean’s fault,” said Virginia. “That is because we are adventurous and go out in ships.”
“Yes,” I answered, “and we are willing to take the chance and pay the price. But surely you do not think of the ocean as cruel, as either good or bad. Beauty is not in anything, but is in the vision of him who beholds it. It is a momentary vision of the completeness of life.”
“Beauty is always a thing of moments. Don’t you think so?” asked Marian. “It depends upon you. At one time you may see a thing as beautiful, and at another time not.”
“Surely,” I said.
“Why is it,” she asked, “that some people cannot appreciate beauty in one special form, either in music, or painting, or poetry?”
I said: “Our senses are channels through which we get the feeling of beauty. But no matter whence the feeling comes, it is that same joy. One man finds it in a picture, and another in a symphony, and another in the woods. Do you know those two lines by William Blake:
‘Who knows but every bird that cleaves the air
Is an immense world of delight closed by our senses five.’
“There may be other senses than ours which bring the same message. Helen Keller hears and sees it with her fingers in her world of darkness.
“Throughout the centuries,” I went on, “in all beginnings and primitive times, art was the expression of religion. The first rude drawings were religious symbols; drama and the dance and music were religious; and all the oldest literature in the world, the Vedas, the Bible, and the old Scandinavian myths were religious books: the Greek drama, and—can you think of others?”
They brought forth many instances; Marian mentioned the English miracle plays, and Virginia spoke of American Indian drawings, saying, however, that they were more often used for communication. I showed her how the first rude figures of animals, the totems, for instance, were also used as religious symbols.
I spoke, too, of the way in which art related us with great minds in ages past. “Ruskin mentions that,” said Ruth and Marian.
“But it is a one-sided relation,” I said, “for we cannot speak to them.”
“I wish we could,” answered Marian. “I so often wish I could ask them questions.”
We said again how hard it was, when asked, to explain to outsiders the purpose of our club. Ruth said: “When I try to tell people, they answer: ‘Oh, yes, I suppose you just talk nonsense, and have a good time.’”
Marian said people wondered that she was willing to stay in-doors on Sunday afternoons.
Virginia said: “I don’t tell any one of it.”
I suggested to them that if one got a perfect standard of beauty in art, it might be all one would need as a moral standard to make one’s life beautiful in the same way.
Now we spoke of the novel. I said I had noticed that last week when I told them of completeness in novels and plays, they seemed not to know just what I meant. Florence said she knew. “It means,” she said, “that every word and every person and every incident must count. It must not be like life, where distracting and unimportant things are always happening.”
“Just so,” I answered. She had learned all that from brother Arthur.
I went over it more explicitly, citing instances, and then told them that we were all of us story-tellers, in the sense that we tried to make every story complete.
“In telling anything that has happened,” I said, “we naturally leave out anything that has no effect on the story.”
“And,” added Florence, “we unconsciously make up little details that help to fill out the story.”
“Now,” said Marian, “I think I must forgive some one I know, who is always exaggerating.”
“I know some one who does it all the time,” said Florence.
“I don’t think that makes it right, though,” Ruth protested.
“No,” I answered, “not right, but not wrong, either. When we realize the artist’s tendency in us all to turn everything into a story, first, we will not judge people harshly for doing it, and, second, we will be careful when we are trying to tell the truth, not to allow ourselves to be cheated by the artist in us.”
“I think,” said Virginia, “people often miss-tell an event, and get it all twisted, because they really forget what was said.”
“Of course,” answered Ruth, “one is not to blame for forgetting.”
I said: “I think that most of us, unconsciously, are story-tellers in both senses. Many of us are constantly telling ourselves stories about ourselves.”
“Oh, yes,” said Ruth, Marian and Florence. They gave me a hint of those wonderful romancings. Marian is always beautiful in her stories, “as in a real novel,” she said. Florence said she was always as homely “as a mud fence,” but I could see by her expression that none the less she was always triumphant. Virginia in her stories was accomplished and a great artist.
I forgot to be one of them for a moment. I said: “Until very lately I, too, used to tell myself stories about myself.”
“I still do it,” said Ruth.
On the subject of unimportant details and characters, we had a long talk. We spoke of Dickens’ many characters and interwoven stories, and Virginia maintained that many had nothing to do with the plot, that they were soon forgotten, and there seemed to be no special reason for them. Marian saw, however, that at times six or seven plots might be woven into a single story. Instead of fitting the standard to Dickens, they fitted Dickens to the standard, and found, indeed, that “The Tale of Two Cities,” which had least characters and distracting stories, was most interesting, and well constructed. Virginia spoke of “Lorna Doone,” and we all agreed with her that the long descriptions of how things were done—fishing, for instance—which the author gave because he was interested in the country, and which had nothing whatever to do with characters and story, made it monotonous and almost spoiled an otherwise delightful book.
Virginia said: “He even tells what pattern of suit he wore when he went fishing.”
They found the same fault with Scott. Indeed, none of them likes Scott. The criticisms were amusing. His blonde heroines were always weak, his dark ones strong, but none of them interesting. Ivanhoe was a flabby nobody.
We spoke of Shakespeare, of the part his clowns played in the story.
Marian said: “I see in what sense his plays are complete, and I feel in him wonderful understanding of men and great sympathy. But he doesn’t uplift me.”
“Do you want to be uplifted into the lofty nothing?” I asked. “Is not humanity good enough for you?”
We spoke, too, of “Little Women,” a much beloved book. We noticed how Louisa Alcott had changed the story to make it a story.
I pointed out to them what it was that made melodrama; namely, the intrusion of events coming from without, not springing from the reaction of characters upon one another, or the intrinsic situation—such as robbers, marvellous rescues, or fortunes left by distant relatives. We had a long talk on this subject, and the children told many stories. But I doubt whether all finally quite understood the distinction, which is often hard to make. Is the coming and going of the ships in “The Merchant of Venice” melodramatic? I told them I should not call it so, since it was bound up with the whole story, almost like the persons. I said that the melodramatic was more like life than the purely dramatic, because in life, with its thousand relations, outside events made changes constantly. But the story was more true if it contained within itself its own complete world, like a miniature universe. Each work of art must represent the whole. “And this is why,” I said, “in a really well-built play or novel, a trained person usually can foretell the outcome. Suppose that we knew everything in the universe, and all the relations of all things to each other, we should be able to foretell every event.”
“Perhaps that is why novels grow tiresome,” said Ruth, “for we get to know just how they will end.”
I spoke of the author leaving out his one-sided moral verdict of his own story. After representing life, the artist should not judge; first, because his judgment is usually partial and incomplete, and breaks the unity; second, because he thereby shows lack of understanding and respect for his reader, who might be trusted to draw his own conclusions. Hawthorne’s stories are often spoiled by his moral comment at the end. At this point I spoke of missing Henry. I am certain he would not have agreed as readily as the others.
I said moral discussions were in place in books on moral subjects, not in artistic works. I mentioned especially the worth, ability and good influence of the writers of so-called “muckraking” articles in the magazines. Virginia waxed enthusiastic. She asked why should Dickens not write of abuses in his novels, when by so doing he actually brought about social reforms? I said that for the social reformer they were right, but not for the artist. I warned her not to confuse the two.
Here Marian spoke of Milton, and of his giving up his artistic work for years to serve his country in politics.
One could not wish he had done otherwise. A man’s life comes before art, before any other expression. I said many of the “muckrakers” were men who might have been artists, but who felt called to work in this more direct way for the beauty of life, because they could not tolerate its ugliness. But they were not artists; they were something different.
“That may be so,” answered Virginia, “but just the same I admire those brave, muckraking men more than artists.”
“They are often more admirable,” I said, “but that does not make them artists. If you admire a soldier more than a poet, that does not make him a poet.”
They spoke of the reformers working for the present, the artist for all time.
“But,” said Virginia, “the result of the reformer’s work will last for all time, too.”
I spoke again of “for” and “against” in books, of how we felt that writer to be the greatest who understood and loved the villains as well as the heroes, and saw the strength and weakness of both alike. They all agreed to this, and quoted plenteous incidents; among others, the outcast in “Bob, Son of Battle,” which they had all read and loved. “How I cried over him!” said Marian; and Ruth and Virginia had cried, too. Here Alfred came in with his enthusiasm.
“Didn’t you cry over it?” asked Marian.
“No,” he answered, “but I almost did.”
“Oh, of course not,” she said. “I forgot you are a boy.”
“He wouldn’t dare admit it, even if he did,” I said.
Virginia said she usually loved the bad characters more than the good ones.
We saw how the false simplicity of villains and heroes—as represented in the poor novel—of all good and all bad, and their appropriate punishment and reward, was untrue to life and human nature. Surely, they said, all men had in them both good and bad. Scott, they insisted, made this mistake.
I spoke of the psychological and the dramatic methods in novels. I said to Marian:
“George Eliot, of whom you spoke the other day, is an example of the psychological method.” I explained the two methods to them, the one going into minute details of motive and thought, the other suggesting to us the motive and thought through the action itself.
Marian does not like George Eliot. She greatly prefers Dickens and Thackeray.
I said I liked George Eliot, but still I preferred the dramatic method for several reasons. I thought that the passions, moods and changes of the soul were too complicated ever to be put down by any author so as to give the impression of truth.
Ruth agreed with me, and said: “Perhaps that is why I like plays better.”
To put down how a man would act under any particular circumstances is much more convincing than to tell how he would feel; for life always expresses itself in creative action. I said: “A reader likes to be trusted and understood by the author. He would rather imagine the minute details of feeling as part of the whole swing of action, to fill out the picture for himself, to be recognized by the author as a fellow genius.”
Ruth said novels tired her, because most novelists had only three or four characters which they used over and over again. I answered her that this was because they wrote out of their own lives, and their characters were usually but different sides of themselves. I said many great painters used only few models. Virginia said she had remarked that many painters always painted faces that resembled themselves.
At this point, just as I was beginning to speak of wit and humor, Virginia’s brother came into the room—in this case, for many reasons, an unavoidable interruption. I had so far always kept these two hours closed against all visitors. Although he sat down in the adjoining room, and was warned to listen and not to talk, his presence made them at once self-conscious and superficial. I asked them whether they knew any distinction between wit and humor.
Virginia answered: “I always think of a witty person as one who has good thoughts and expresses them cleverly, and of a humorous person as a boor and booby, like that one in the next room.”
After the laugh had passed, I said: “Virginia, I can think of only one expression that will fit you just now, and that is slang. I think you are talking——”
“Through my hat?”
“Yes, exactly. This to me seems the difference between wit and humor: The witty man is he who says or writes clever, funny things, just to show how clever and keen he is. Conceits are witty, because wit is essentially conceited. It may be very interesting and entertaining, but it always makes you think of the author rather than of his characters. It is always superficial, the trick of words, and it doesn’t keep well through the ages. A pun, for instance, is always witty.”
“Ough!” said Virginia, “not always!”
“Bernard Shaw,” I said, “is a good example of wit. Humor is the understanding of the petty foibles, humors and lovable weaknesses of men. Remember that the word humor really means mood or state of the blood, that it is a word very like the word ‘human.’ Humor is always human. It is the large, genial way of looking at life of him who sees how little men are, and how great they are at the same time. It is a sense of absurd contradictions, of the unity of utterly unlike things, almost a parody of completeness. All humor, all wit, everything funny is an incongruous bringing together of things that do not seem to belong together.”
“I suppose,” Marian said, “that is why we laugh when we see some one fall in the street?”
“Yes,” said Virginia, “for their heads and the sidewalk don’t belong together.”
“Now, seriously,” asked Marian, “what makes me want to laugh when I see any one fall, especially a grown person? And I must laugh, especially if it is a fat person, no matter how hard I may try to be polite.”
“That’s because you expect a grown person and a fat person to be dignified, and to fall is very undignified. Imagine his high hat flying one way, his gold-headed cane another, and his heels in the air. But if a little boy falls you don’t laugh, because little boys are meant to fall.”
“When my mother falls,” Ruth said, “I can’t keep from laughing, though I hate to see her fall.”
“But everything funny grows stale very soon,” said Marian.
“That is,” I answered, “because when we get used to a combination it no longer seems incongruous.”
“Well,” asked Marian, “when you laugh at people because they are boors and funny, why is that?”
“That is,” I said, “because you feel yourself to be so vastly superior.”
“Is it?” she asked. “I suppose so.”
“And next time you want to laugh at any one,” I said mock-seriously, “just think of it first, that you are considering how superior you are.”
She seemed greatly impressed and quite cast down by this remark.
I said: “Perhaps a good distinction to make between wit and humor is that wit laughs at people and humor laughs with them.”
“Isn’t satire wit?” asked Marian.
I thought a moment. “Yes, surely,” I answered.
As I spoke again of the relation of beauty to our subject, Ruth said:
“What has all this about wit and humor to do with our subject?”
“Not much,” I said, “except that it shows how the spirit of fun has a part in harmony; and that it shows humor to be understanding and a human thing. But it is interesting for itself, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” she answered, “it is very interesting.”