As in political so in literary action a man wins friends for himself mostly by the passion of his prejudices and by the consistent narrowness of his outlook.But I have never been able to love what was not lovable or hate what was not hateful out of deference for some general principle.Whether there be any courage in making this admission I know not.After the middle turn of life's way we consider dangers and joys with a tranquil mind.So I proceed in peace to declare that I have always suspected in the effort to bring into play the extremities of emotions the debasing touch of insincerity.In order to move others deeply we must deliberately allow ourselves to be carried away beyond the bounds of our normal sensibility--innocently enough,perhaps,and of necessity,like an actor who raises his voice on the stage above the pitch of natural conversation--but still we have to do that.And surely this is no great sin.But the danger lies in the writer becoming the victim of his own exaggeration,losing the exact notion of sincerity,and in the end coming to despise truth itself as something too cold,too blunt for his purpose--as,in fact,not good enough for his insistent emotion.From laughter and tears the descent is easy to snivelling and giggles.
These may seem selfish considerations;but you can't,in sound morals,condemn a man for taking care of his own integrity.It is his clear duty.And least of all can you condemn an artist pursuing,however humbly and imperfectly,a creative aim.In that interior world where his thought and his emotions go seeking for the experience of imagined adventures,there are no policemen,no law,no pressure of circumstance or dread of opinion to keep him within bounds.Who then is going to say Nay to his temptations if not his conscience?
And besides--this,remember,is the place and the moment of perfectly open talk--I think that all ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind.All intellectual and artistic ambitions are permissible,up to and even beyond the limit of prudent sanity.
They can hurt no one.If they are mad,then so much the worse for the artist.Indeed,as virtue is said to be,such ambitions are their own reward.Is it such a very mad presumption to believe in the sovereign power of one's art,to try for other means,for other ways of affirming this belief in the deeper appeal of one's work?To try to go deeper is not to be insensible.A historian of hearts is not a historian of emotions,yet he penetrates further,restrained as he may be,since his aim is to reach the very fount of laughter and tears.
The sight of human affairs deserves admiration and pity.They are worthy of respect,too.And he is not insensible who pays them the undemonstrative tribute of a sigh which is not a sob,and of a smile which is not a grin.Resignation,not mystic,not detached,but resignation open-eyed,conscious,and informed by love,is the only one of our feelings for which it is impossible to become a sham.
Not that I think resignation the last word of wisdom.I am too much the creature of my time for that.But I think that the proper wisdom is to will what the gods will without,perhaps,being certain what their will is--or even if they have a will of their own.And in this matter of life and art it is not the Why that matters so much to our happiness as the How.As the Frenchman said,"Il y a toujours la maniere."Very true.Yes.
