The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1915-04-17

CSfiuV bCHCfS arc nero presented uUutn,
together MIN the opinions Of other
notable wy1tcrs.
ny ALFRED MOVES.
That war stops literature is of
course true 10 certain extent For
instance. II liz true In Belgium, where
great school of poetry was in full ac-
tivity A nation actually in the throes
of a hostile invasion cannot produce
literature. The old definition OF poetry
as emotion remembered in tranquility
liz true. and just now 1t is especially
significant
| think that the war is causing
great spiritual awakening which Will
have a powerful beneficial effect on Ill
forms of creative art. | do not believe
that We shall ever go back in literature
TO Just the state that we were In before
this war came. The war will be fol-
lowed by genuine literary and artistic
renascence.
our advance In spiritual things may
be compared to the spreading Of circles
when a stone is dropped into the water.
During the years before this war we
were so Interested IN watching the cir
Giles that we forgot about the stone that
caused them We thought OF the move
ments." not of the centre After the
war the circles will 20 on widening, but
we will remember the stone that causes
them our literature will be rooted tas
the literature Of the Nictorians was
rooted) to a central verify. | know that
any one who praises the Nictorians
nowadays is called a reactionary. but
I must risk earning that epithet. IL Is
generally applied, | notice, by old, de-
crepit men to men who are young and
active.
Since Victorian times there has been
an increasing tendency among writers
20 lose the completeness of vision which
enabled poets like Tennyson and Brown
ing to state the case for pessimism more
strongly than any latter day pessimist
has stated II and yet enabled them TO
state the other side too and TO go deep
enough TO find the reconciliation OF those
opposites II was 4 great poet OF falth
who coined the phrase Mature. red in
tooth and claw" But he did not limit
himself TO that one obvious aspect OF
things.
they and their clan had through long
years Of suffering discovered for the
first time fact that was known TO the
pious monks OF the Middle Ages. that
there is a skeleton an inch below the
skin and that death comes to all men,
Why. the great poets of faith have been
more preoccupied with that one simple
fact than with any other. And II Is to
those poets that we turn In times like
these-these who
Never doubted clouds would break :
Never dreamed. though right were
worsted, wrong would triumph.
Held we fall to rise. are banned to fight
better;
Sleep to wake.
Because of the vast broadening OF
the fields of thought In our time and
the inability of modern writer's to keep
pace with IL many of them have lost
their poyer to consider all the factors
In the problems. And so We have all
this immoral twaddle where the inter-
dependence OF the world, or OF the people
In IL, is forgotten in order to proclaim
the right of one or two individuals to
Give their own life
We have pessimsts whose aim APP
pears to he TO depress their fellow men
with the sense of their insigniticance in
the presence of the vast physical uni
verse Read "Vastness' and YOU Will
see that the great nineteenth century
writer's understood all this, and yet with
Tennyson and Browning could he very
sure of God and the soul which is
greater than anything We know OF In the
physical universe. our agnostiCs de-
clare that they do not know and then
assume all the privileges OF complete
knowledge with a self-assertiveness that
has never been matched in history.
Many of our modern writer's have be-
come specialists-specialists along GER
tain narrow lines of thought specialists
sometimes along certain curious by
paths of morality specialists who have
lost the sense of totality, the sense of
the value of their particular studies In
relation to the whole. This loss has
made action feeble and waNward by de-
prving men of the conviction that there
was any great critical aim to be &C.
cheved by II.
OF course, IN certain pract ical AFFAIRS
of life II is absolutely necessary that
men shall specialize II they are to he
efficient. The captain OF a ship cannot
d. his duty and at the same time sue
cessfully practise as surgeon in 4
great city, This is one of the chief
reasons why literature and art are OF
so vast importance in modern life. For
the man who is professionally a special
ist they open windows from which he
can survey the rest Of the world and
regain something OF that centrality
which in his daily work he is likely 10
lose. While IT is necessary for men Ia
specialize in certain practical affairs
these affairs arc usually matters OF
outside routine which need not cramr
OF conhne the spirit. The danger comes
when, owing to the conplexity OF the
modern intellectual world, our artists
and men of letters begin to specia live IN
those narrow lines of thought which
mentioned before.
For in doing this they are not only
aba ndoninG their chief function of Sor-
vice to their fellow men but they be
come a real menace. They lead thou
sands astray. like the knights in Tcuny-
sons Holy Grail" who followed wan
dernG fires" kipling, - really great
modern writer and poet, uttered the
same warning AS Tennyson when he
cautioned his countrymen against many
Inventions and against following af.
ter visions overwise and overstale."
Now tho shock OF the war has stead
led us down into "A central position
We are not interested in movements
and bypaths OF thought we are return
ing to the great elemental things OF
life How tho attitude of England has
changed toward certain writers and how
certain writer's have changed since last
August
The change is not only in Substance
II is In method too. Certain styles OF
writing, the brilliantly paradoNical ana
enigrammatic, for instance. have
seemed suddenly To lose their force and
charm, II was not Gilbert *. Chester.
the war that Interested us. but on Tho
other hand his poetic method ls emf
pently suited to the occasion. The wal
has inspired him to write "a Wife OF
Flanders and II has inspired nc
greater poem.
~'ne source OF our literary evils has
.