New-York tribune., 1922-11-26
S!Jurgen'': A Consideration
BY Isabel Paterson

Could anything he more discouraging
to the seeker after wickedness?
| Romance, too, Jurgen has his fling at.
But he is afraid Of Romance-who is
Helen of Troy! And the sentimental
dryad turns domestic on him, which is
the right end Of sentiment.
Also he goes to the heaven of his
grandmother, which he has never be-
| lieved in. 1t brings wistful tears to his
| eyes---but still he cannot believe in it.
| Then he visits the hell of his fore
fathers, but neither has he the requisite
fervor Of faith TO be at home there.
Not his the character Of his father
| Goth, whom he finds upbraiding the
imps for not piling on enough fuel for
so great sinner as Goth has been.
Then naturally Jurgen is confirmed
materialist, II the rewards of Heaven
and the pains Of He'll alike are incredi.
Bile to him? Not. quite. When Pan
takes him into the dark wood and shows
him the material basis of life, the
tooth and claw" the blind and ruth
less quality of it, Jurgen repudiates it
with shuddering horror. That cannot
be the whole truth. II think shall
endure, somehow" he maintains des-
perately.
So, having had his second chance at
everything, including his first love,
Jurgen asks only to be middle-sged
pawnbroker again, with his scolding
Lisa to make him comfortable. Re
spectability and matrimony suited
him best after all. "The~e's no place
like home" That was the doom Of
Jurgen; can you point moral sharper
than that?
What then is the book all about? {?
1t is an allegory OF the modern mind.
Just as "Candide" examined and
mocked at the mock optimism Of the
lucky few of his day so "Jurgen"
makes play with the easy-going cyni-
cism OF ours. That was the end of
the age of faith. This is the age Of
agnosticism. Jurgen doubts even his
ing absolutely, until he is confronted
by Nothingness, and then he quite
frantically disbclieves in that.
In one sentence, by the way, he ex-
pounds the substance OF Mr.. Balfour's
heavy book on "The Foundations of
Belief" A thousand other contem-
porary mental states and credos are
touched off in the same airy manner.
Throughout nearly 400 pages the in
yention never flags and the fancy never
stales.
Certain people should not read it,
but then they won't. Your serious
young intellectual will call it unim-
portant-becausee it laughs at him.
And great number of good and high
minded folk would hate it; because
they live by faith, even If only sort
Of Tennys oman "In Memorisn" faith.
"a ,ots ,F - q -
must necessarily be painful, for their
faith is vital to them and yet at the
same time not robust enough TO defy
examination. Such a book can only
give them genuine shock, sense Of
spiritually naked discomfort, even
though they defend themselves by in
stinct against understanding it. They
are quite right. as any one is to hold
by what will serve.
Those who find it erotic it cannot
harm; they will find that in any love
story or poem, since such is the main
object of poetry and love stories, and
not bad one, either. Without liter
ary and poetic embroidery, the bust
ness of love would be rather repellent.
But to readers already disillusoned,
and still smarting from the process, it
is soothing and refreshing unguent
"a reminder that even when the worst
that can happen in an ordinary life has
befallen, life Is still bearable and
amusing. They will find here defined
the limits Of disillusion.
Heine constantly gibed at Berlin as
the city of Philistines. He instanced
the fact, during heer-garden chat,
that irony was unknown by Berlin
ese. Nannerl, the pretty kellnerin,
overheard and admitted regretfully:
THAT is true: we have no irony. But
We have every other kind of beer"
So when irony was offered to America
for the first time, undiluted, 1t was
conflscated as containing more than
2.75 of intoxicating content. And now
that it has been officially certified to
the contrary, very likely for that rea-
son no one will be eager to drink it.