The Journal of Arthur Stirling : ("The Valley of the Shadow") Part 48

You ask me to believe in your civilization; you ask me to believe in your love of light! Let me tell you when I would believe in your civilization and your love of light.

I say that the last and the highest thing in this world is _Genius_.

I say that Religion and Art and Progress and Enlightenment--that all these things are made out of Genius; and that Genius is first and last, highest, and best, and fundamental. And I say that when you recognize that fact--when you believe in Genius--when you prepare the way for it and make smooth the paths for it--I say that then and then alone may you tell me that you are civilized.

The thing shrieks against heaven--your cruelty, your stupidity. Since ever the first poet came into this world it has been the same story of agony, indignity, and shame. _And what do you do?_

It is poverty that I talk about, poverty alone! The poet wants nothing in this world but to be let alone to listen to the voices of his soul. He wants nothing from you in all this world but that you give him food while he does it--while he does it, miserable people--not for himself, but for _you_.

This is the shame upon you--that you expect--that you always have expected--that the poet, besides doing the fearful task his inspiration lays upon him--that he shall go out into the coa.r.s.e, ruthless world and slave for his bread! That is the shame! That is the indignity, that is the brutality, the stupidity, the infamy! Shame upon you, shame upon you, world!

The poet! He comes with a heart trembling with gladness; he comes with tears of rapture in his eyes! He comes with bosom heaving and throat choking and heart breaking. He comes with tenderness and with trust, with joy in the beauty that he beholds. He comes a minstrel, with a harp in his hand--and you set your dogs upon him--you drive him torn and bleeding from your gates!

The poet! You make him go out into the market and chaffer for his bread!

You subject him to the same law to which you subject your loafers and your louts--that he who will not work can not eat! Your drones, and your drunkards--and your poets! Every man must earn for himself, every man must pay his way! No man must ask favors, no man must be helped, no man shall be any different from other men! For shame! For shame!

And you love letters! You love poetry! You are civilized, you are liberal, you are enlightened! You are fools!

I tell you the agony of this thing is in me yet--it has heaped itself up in my soul all my days. It was my life, it was my _life_ that cried out! And now that I can not save my own self--oh, let me at least save the others! O G.o.d, let me not die till I have said one word that reaches their hearts, till I have done something to change this ghastly thing! The voices of the ages cry out to me. Not only the hundreds who have gone before--but the hundreds and the thousands who are to come! What are _we_ to do?

they cry--who shall save _us_? Are we to share the same fate--are we too to struggle and die in vain? And in this world that is civilized! In this world that seeks progress! In this world that wants nothing but light!

Not to the mob I speak, not to those who once mocked me; if none but they lived, I should hold my tongue and go. But you men who are leaders, you men who stand upon the top, you men who see!--can I not find some word to reach _you_? You men who really love books--who have money--who want nothing but to put it to use!--can I not find some word to reach _you_?

O G.o.d! And it is all so simple.

I tell you this land will never be civilized, this land will never lead mankind, it will never be anything but the torture-house that I have found it, until it makes some provision for its men of _Genius_! Until this simple fundamental thing be true--that a man may know that if he have _Genius_--that the day he shows he has _Genius_--he will be honored and protected by society and not trampled and kicked like a dog.

That he will not have to go out into the market-place and vend his wares!

That he will not have to make sick his soul haggling for his bread! That if he turns his strength to higher things, and exposes himself to the world thereby, he will not be trodden down in the struggle for existence! That he will not have to bear indignities and insults; that he will not have to write till he be ripe, or be stunted and deformed by early deprivation.

Genius. And am I not to die now?--And what matters the world?

Therefore let me write it: that I was a man of Genius. And that you have trodden me down in the struggle for existence. That I saw things that no other man has ever seen, I would have written things that no other man can ever write. And that you have trodden me down in the struggle for existence--that you have trodden me down because I could not earn my bread!

This is what I tell you--this is what I cry out to you, that the man of Genius _can not_ earn his bread! That the work by which he develops his power is something absolutely and utterly different from the work by which he earns his bread! And that every hour which he gives to the one, he lessens his power and his capacity for the other! Every hour that he gives to the earning of his bread, he takes from his soul, he weakens his work, he destroys beauty which never again can he know or dream!

And this again is what I tell you, this again is what I cry out to you: that the power by which a man of Genius does his work, and the power by which he earns his bread, are things so entirely distinct that _they may not occur together at all_! The man may have both, but then again he may only have the former.--And in that case he will die like a poisoned rat in a hole.

What is the first principle of the democracy of which we boast, if it be not that excellence, that power, that _Genius_, is not the attribute of the rich or the n.o.ble, but that it may make its appearance anywhere among men? And you who sigh for men of talent to raise American letters--what do you _do_ about it? I will tell you something right now, to begin with; it will startle you, perhaps, and you may not believe it; but I mean to prove it later on. For the present I say this: that of the seven poets who const.i.tute the glory of the literature of England in the nineteenth century, four of them were rich men, five of them were independent, one of them was endowed when he was a youth, and the seventh, the greatest of them all, died like a poisoned rat in a hole.

And what do you _do_ about it? What you do is to lean back in your chair and say: "The literary market was never so wide-awake as it is now, and the publishers never so anxious for new talent"!

Fools! And you think that the publishers are in business for the developing of talent, and for the glory of literature! And that they care about whether a man of Genius dies in the streets, or not! Why, have I not heard them tell me, with their own lips, that "a publisher who published books that the trade did not want would be driven out of business in a year"?

And you tell me that the author is an independent man nowadays! And can earn his living with his books!

It is your privilege to think that, if you choose; but perhaps you will not mind hearing what _I_ tell you--that the author can find no way to a living more degrading to him than the earning of it with his books. I have shoveled snow, and shoveled manure too, in the streets, and shoveled food for swine in a restaurant. But I never did anything so degrading as I should have had to do if I had tried to earn my living with my books.

Oh, the author may be independent, may he! And you will escape with that fine plat.i.tude, and with that bitter mockery! And never think that the author's independence is but the fine phrase for your own indifference!

Again it is your privilege to think what you choose; but again perhaps you will not mind hearing what I tell you--that there can never be any man in this world more dependent than an author, if he be a true author. A true author is the singer and dreamer of society; and who is there more dependent than the singer and the dreamer--who is there less powerful and less cunning in the things of the body?

Why, the author gives up his whole life for your joy and help, he consecrates himself, he lashes and burns and tortures himself--for your sake! And you spurn him from you, and tell him he is "independent"!

Here is the truth, here is the crux, here is the whole thing in a sentence.

A publisher is not in business for the furtherance of Art, or for the uplifting of humanity, or for the wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d. He doesn't mind doing these things incidentally, of course, when the fortunate occasion arises; but do you think if he had his choice between publis.h.i.+ng a new Paradise Lost to be read fifty years from date, and publis.h.i.+ng a biography of a reigning prince, or a treatise on gastronomy, or a new dime novel by Marie Corelli in a first edition of a hundred thousand copies--do you think he would hesitate, now really?

You say that "literary excellence is identical with publis.h.i.+ng availability"! I tell you that they are as far apart--why, that they are just exactly this far apart--as far as what mankind likes is from what mankind ought to like.

And you ask the man of Genius to cringe and tremble before the standard of what the reading public likes! You ask him to tame the frenzy of his inspiration, to pull your pleasure-carriages with his winged steed! He shall be no more the seer and the prophet and the leader--he shall be mountebank and public-entertainer.

And you call yourself civilized! O G.o.d!

And the poet! Again the poet! Is he not _vital_ to your society? Is he not, in the last a.n.a.lysis, the lawmaker, the law-enforcer--this seeker, this inspirer, this man with the new vision of right? I look at this society--body enough I see, bone and muscle, and a good, large, capable stomach. Brain enough I see, too, or nearly enough; but Soul? Soul? Who will dare to tell me that there is Soul enough? And your poet--why, _he_ is your Soul! He is the man who fills the millions with the breath of life, who makes the whole vast machine a living, rejoicing, beautiful thing. _He_--every n.o.ble impulse that you have has come originally from him--the memory of his words thrill in the hearts of men--pupils gather to study them--tired hearts seek them for refreshment--they grow and they fill all the earth--and never through the centuries do they die! They blossom into n.o.ble impulses, into new movements,--into reforms that reach down to the lowest wretches of the gutter, who never even heard of a poet. Why, they have reached to the very dogs, that are beaten less than they were.

And what is it that makes civilization in the end? What is it that the world really honors in the end? You Americans, you who love your country, you who believe in your country's inst.i.tutions, who believe that your country holds in her womb the future of mankind! You who want the world to believe that!--how are you going to _get_ the world to believe that?

Is it--poor, impotent, foolish creatures--by covering your land until it is a maze of twenty-story office buildings? By lining it with railroads six feet apart?--Do you not know that this very hour the reason why Europe does not believe in America is that it has not a man to sing its Soul? That it has been a century in the eyes of the world, and has not yet brought forth one single poet or thinker of the first rank?

The poet! And I sought to be that man, my heart burned to sing that song!