The sun., 1919-04-20

vanity of their days to come. Beautiful
pastime if you can write like these men
Godhke doom if you are an artist and
can give the world Temptation Of SAINT
anthony a Les FleTrs du Mdl, PoemeS
Trugigues or an En- ROtue.
1t is the grandeur Of pessimism that it
gives us wisdom and art. Despair and
pain breed the Beauty that the world
keeps. It is the heaven rending ironies
and canticles from the Prometheuses of
art, chained to their granite Calvaries,
that endure The human race is redeemed
IN its curses, uttered through the lips of
its prophets Pity the poor IN spirit who
never cursed his natal day! He is made
Of such stuff as punk is made Of and his
little life is rounded in ladies' sewing
circle.
So, gentle reader and We SNUG brethren
Ct the pretty little ''bedtime story" you are
are not going to be amused" when you
read J. K. Huvsmans's En- Route, trans
lated from the French by G. Kegan Paul
and brought ont by f. P. Dutton & Co If
Won love the subtleties and mysteries of
the psychology of Catholicism, if you love
great writing and if there are pinlons In
your brain wherewith TO wing You to
heaven or plunge you to hell, if you love
the condensed sentence that rocks you into
a fer meditation, or you are an Alpinist
Of great, high towering images and find
a pleasure in being bitten into an admir-
able frenzy by vital, out of the dugs
similes-why, here is your book; one you
Will not sell or pawn or ram away among
your Current" reading
En- Route is the mystical diary Of Dur
tai, who is no other than J. K. Huysmans
himself. Durtal is a Lucullus Of sensa-
tons, Partisan who passed in and out
of his hells with the ease of Satan HIM
self. But it fell upon a certain day that
Heonversion''-or at least theneed of con-
version-came to him. Conversion, says
William James, is simply the rise over
the threshold of consciousness of another
self, a buried ego that resurrects on an
Easter morn of the spirit. Durtal walks
toward his Damascus, conversing with
spirits damned and spirits holy and spirits
ironic and spirits diabolic and spirits
lewd Hell is paved with many gardens
if Won know the country. The monastery
La Trappe is his end "If they his lit
erary acquaintance in Paris knew how
inferior they are to the lowest Of the lay
brothers! If they could imagine how the
divine intoxication of a Trappist swine
herd interests me more than all their con-
versations and all their books! All!
Lord, that might live, live in the shadow
of the prayers of humble Brother
Simeonp
En- Route is a perfect thesaurus of
musical, artistic and religious criticism.
After reading Huysmans one grasps more
completely the superfciality and hopeless
imitativeness of George Moore. For Hugs
mans has lived IN he'll; Moore only goes a
jaunting there. Huysmans sleeps with
Satan; Moore only leaves his visiting card
at his Majesty's mansion and makes notes
on the servants and the outbuildings,
being, as he is, only Dublin reporter with
a Persian high school education.
Durtal drops into st. Sulpice He
hstsns 10 the sermon. "If these cooks of
the soul had any skill, if they served
their clients with delicate meats, theology
cal essences, gravies of prayer, concen-
trated sauces Of ideas, they wonld vege-
tate misunderstood by their focks. So.
on the whole, it is all for the best. The
low water mark of the clergy must con
form to the level of the faithful, and in
deed" he concludes ironically, "Provi-
dence has provided carefully for this"
Huysmanss Catholic Church is esoteric,
aristocratic, retreat for the elect of sin
and the obscurely damned; really some
thing epicurean, a penetrailum for adopts,
a Pantheon for fallen but proud Lucifers
In feet Catholicism is, with Huysmans, a
branch, a detail of Art. FINALLY" he
says, "Drrtal has been brought back to