Some Diversions of a Man of Letters | Page 2

the estimate always changing?
Is every form of poetic taste, is all trained enjoyment of poetry, merely
a graduated illusion which goes up and down like a wave of the sea and
carries "the best judges" with it? If not, who is right, and who is wrong,
and what is the use of dogmatising? Let us unite to quit all vain
ambition, and prefer the jangle of the music-halls, with its direct
"æsthetic thrill."
So far as I know, the only philosopher who has dared to face this
problem is Mr. Balfour, in the brilliant second chapter of his
"Foundations of Belief." He has there asked, "Is there any fixed and
permanent element in beauty?" The result of his inquiry is
disconcerting; after much discussion he decides that there is not. Mr.
Balfour deals, in particular, with only two forms of art, Music and
Dress, but he tacitly includes the others with them. It is certain that the
result of his investigations is the singularly stultifying one that we are
not permitted to expect "permanent relations" in or behind the feeling
of poetic beauty, which may be indifferently awakened by Blake to-day
and by Hayley to-morrow. If the critic says that the verse of Blake is

beautiful and that of Hayley is not, he merely "expounds case-made
law." The result seems to be that no canons of taste exist; that what are
called "laws" of style are enacted only for those who make them, and
for those whom the makers can bully into accepting their legislation, a
new generation of lawbreakers being perfectly free to repeal the code.
Southey yesterday and Keats to-day; why not Southey again to-morrow,
or perhaps Tupper? Such is the cynical cul-de-sac into which the logic
of a philosopher drives us.
We have had in France an example of volte-face in taste which I
confess has left me gasping. I imagine that if Mr. Balfour was able to
spare a moment from the consideration of fiscal reform, he must have
spent it in triumphing over the fate of M. Sully-Prudhomme. In the
month of September 1906 this poet closed, after a protracted agony,
"that long disease, his life." He had compelled respect by his courage in
the face of hopeless pain, and, one might suppose, some gratitude by
the abundance of his benefactions. His career was more than blameless,
it was singularly exemplary. Half-blind, half-paralysed, for a long time
very poor, pious without fanaticism, patient, laborious, devoted to his
friends, he seems to have been one of those extraordinary beings whose
fortitude in the face of affliction knows no abatement. It would be
ridiculous to quote any of these virtues as a reason for admiring the
poetry of Sully-Prudhomme. I mention them merely to show that there
was nothing in his personal temperament to arouse hatred or in his
personal conditions to excuse envy. Nothing to account for the,
doubtless, entirely sincere detestation which his poetry seemed to
awaken in all "the best minds" directly he was dead.
As every one knows, from about 1870 to 1890, Sully-Prudhomme was,
without a rival, the favourite living poet of the French. Victor Hugo
was there, of course, until 1885--and posthumously until much
later--but he was a god, and the object of idolatry. All who loved
human poetry, the poetry of sweetness and light, took
Sully-Prudhomme to their heart of hearts. The Stances et Poèmes of
1865 had perhaps the warmest welcome that ever the work of a new
poet had in France. Théophile Gautier instantly pounced upon Le Vase
Brisé (since too-famous) and introduced it to a thousand school-girls.

Sainte-Beuve, though grown old and languid, waked up to celebrate the
psychology and the music of this new poetry, so delicate, fresh and
transparent. An unknown beauty of extreme refinement seemed to have
been created in it, a beauty made up of lucidity, pathos and sobriety.
Readers who are now approaching seventy will not forget with what
emotion they listened, for instance, to that dialogue between the
long-dead father and the newly-buried son, which closes:--
"J' ai laissé ma soeur et ma mère Et les beaux livres que j' ai lus; Vous
n'avez pas de bru, mon père, On m'a blesse, je n'aime plus."
"De tes aïeux compte le nombre, Va baiser leurs fronts inconnus, Et
viens faire ton lit dans l'ombre A côté des derniers venus.
"Ne pleure pas, dors dans l'argile En espérant le grand reveit." "O père,
qu'il est difficile De ne plus penser au soleil!"
This body of verse, to which was presently added fresh collections--Les
Epreuves (1886), Les Vaines Tendresses (1875), Le Prisme
(1886),--was welcomed by the elder Sanhedrim, and still more
vociferously and unanimously by the younger priesthood of criticism. It
pleased the superfine amateurs of poetry, it was accepted with
enthusiasm by the thousands