Moral Poison in Modern Fiction

  V

  THE "SPADE" IDEAL IN FICTION

  This has been summarized once for all in his description of what Mr.W. L. George calls a "sincere" novel: "There would be as many scenesin the bedroom as in the drawing-room, probably more, given that humanbeings spend more time in the former than the latter apartment."

  There is nothing sincere in that definition except its nasty flavour;the lust it suggests. The actual effect, if not the intention, is aquick shock to our natural instincts.

  Any possible value it might appear to possess at first sight, as aserious argument, has been lost by the insincere reason given. Mr.George himself is far too good an artist not to know that _real_ lifeis _not_ measured by length of hours. Crises are, nearly always, swift.Too often, a character is lost or won in a moment; we grow old in anight; gain the happiness of a lifetime by the right word. How many aman is bound to "spend more time" over his ledger than beside his lady!

  This weak reasoning gives the realists away. They are so set on theletter of truth as to deny its spirit. Aiming at exact photographicreproduction of life, they lose all sense of proportion and realvalues, hiding the wood in the trees. Whether or not the material factsbe true, the reality is false, the proportions misplaced, the pictureout of focus.

  In practice, moreover, they do select no less arbitrarily than theromantic Victorians. In their view, "one can only get at most women'sminds through their bodies."

  But Mr. George has only _expressed_ one reason for his contention; evenif _that_ be seriously intended. The argument really _means_ that,often, if not always, the most vital moments of our life are spent inthe bedroom; a half-truth more dangerous and misleading than a lie.

  What the word "bedroom" in this sentence honestly stands for isobviously something quite real; but it does not reveal or testcharacter, and can never in any way complete a _true_ picture of life.The accidents of expression are not truth itself.

  In a recent drama of temperament called _Enter Madame_, the author'smere instinct for stage-effects has, as it were by accident, providedan illustration that proves our point. The hero of this spontaneousand light-hearted drama is attracted by two women of whom one largelyappeals to his passions (though _not_ his lust); and the other appearsto possess what modernists would call the "tame" comforting qualitiesof a "good" wife. He chooses passion in the end, following his love_off the stage_, into a bedroom. In this scene we have the whole truth;no added sincerity in the presentment, no shade of character the mostminute, would have been added by opening that door. The emotionaldecision was the reality.

  To the realist the play would probably seem a square fight between wifeand mistress—with the inevitable result!

  But, in actual fact, almost every detail went to confound the newmorality. The passionate woman was the hero's wife, whom he had justdivorced—to achieve domesticity. She did _not_ exclusively depend uponthe physical appeal; though it was used to bring him back. They had athousand other, more subtle, points of sympathy and mutual attraction,despite the exasperating petty irritations of life, which she wouldnot allow to wreck their love. On the other hand, it was not any fixedaversion to marriage, any weakness in the bond itself, that caused herrival's failure. She simply was not, when—as it were—put to the test,his spiritual mate. For him, she was the wrong woman.

  Most certainly this play was not inspired by any conscious theories onlife or art. A straightforward, workmanlike picture of everyday people;its very lack of intention made it the more convincing. The author hadno axe to grind.

  As in life, we saw that the best feelings of an ordinary decent sort ofman are expressed, as his ultimate happiness is secured, by 'puttingup with his wife's tantrums for love of her dear self.' That is, bysome kind of self-control about the small things of life for the sakeof the big; an instinctive knowledge of values or sense of proportion;mutual accommodation, and self-expression in self-sacrifice. He wouldnot rush away from her for a change or new experience, to that placiddomesticity which, because he had missed it, he—for a moment—supposedwould prove ideal.

  Nevertheless, it is absolutely clear that his decision does _not_establish the superiority of passion-storms over carpet slippers.He chose between two women, not between two modes of life: a matterof temperament, and the man's individual, permanent feeling. Thoughmarried, he had not—as he too hastily imagined—fallen "out of" love.

  Life is distorted to-day by the orgy of crude passion in mostsecond-rate fiction, of which Mr. Evan Morgan's _Trial by Ordeal_ is anextreme case. Unfortunately such novelists have the smart air of beingabsolutely at home all over the world, without really knowing their wayabout anywhere.

  The leading lady of this brightly variegated human manure-heap is a"vampire, like a sea-breeze, like the noise of a waterfall at night";her familiar ally is a discreet "sort of lady dressmaker, whose sons,numbering almost equally with her lovers, had forced her to take toa genteel trade." It is a picture of life among "bolsters with thetemperaments of wood-lice; . . . among talented women, gifted women,immoral women."

  Here Miss Hazell O'Neill "netted a half-blind poet, whom she took outand dusted on bright days and holidays." Him she ultimately left, aspart of her luggage, to a landlady in Jersey; and proceeded to "smasha sculptor with his own statue."

  Caught at last by "romance," falling in love with a man whowondered—"would she be more trouble than she was worth"; thisdetermined young woman "leapt up and began undressing . . . plunged intothe water"; so that "the momentary glance he had of her naked beauty,the excitement, overcame him."

  The hero, in his "first affair" with "the daughter of a veryrespectable God-fearing parson," carefully taught her the new ideals of"free love, free conscience, free everything . . . hoping himselfto reap the fruit of his labours." Submitting, however, to the"ceremonial" of marriage, he was caught in his own trap. She wasnow "enlightened," and "dreading suddenly the binding nature of theservice," ran away, at the eleventh hour, with another man.

  Afterwards "she came back ill, very ill, and he left her to sink orswim." Such is the chivalry of free love; that ultimately drove her tobecome "a horrible, decadent, drug-maniac."

  Of his "spiritual" union with another, we read: "Both were exhausted,the _emotions of the soul_ had overpowered them, they fell faintingagainst the cool grey stone, and there, like a burning picture of allthe romances there have been since the beginning of time, they leant inthe twilight."

  By all means call a spade a spade; but do not imagine that all life isspades. To insist upon bedroom scenes in fiction or drama, and all thenakedness of phrase such a conception of art implies, does, and must,often suggest the sly and coarse innuendo. It is the same with all_excess_ of emphasis on physical detail. When Mr. D. H. Lawrence dwellson the feverish symptoms (mainly skin-deep) of his lovers, describestheir breasts and loins, he is—actually—playing with the obscene.

  The reticence we demand is not based on any pretence that our bodiesare unclean, on any conventional association between mere words andthoughts.

  A nude painting may be supremely, spiritually, beautiful: it may belewd: but it is not, as many would now declare, more real _because_ ofits nudity.

  Can we _honestly_ say that the increasing undress on stage or in dailylife provokes more deep, true and sincere feeling, reveals more ofa girl's or a woman's real and best self? We know it does not. _Itdistracts our thoughts from the woman herself_ to memories of purelyanimal and gross experience, tempts us to lower depths. It mattersnot, in the book or in the play, that innocence prevail. I have heardmen, for example, when the curtain fell at _The Sign of the Cross_,chuckling over the public attack on a girl's body (though it failed),with gay plans for vile conquests.

  Obviously, there can be no fixed verbal rule. To say that no writer mayuse certain words or describe certain actions and things; no playwrightmay paint certain scenes; would be to "speak as a fool." Each case mustbe determined by its inner spiritual truth.

  In one sense our selection of phrase must be a matter of t
aste andgood feeling; in another, it comes from our artistic instinct. What Imaintain, and have tried to show, is that modern novels are, too often,both poisonous _and_ untrue to life because their choice of words and,indeed, their whole picture of life, is dominated by a false view:that, if only your figures are naked they _must_ be true, that ourbodies cannot lie. _In angry revolt against the half-truths of thepast, they snatch at the other half and swear it is the whole._

  Let the writer be sure that he cares only for truth; and loyalty to hisvision will give him the right, clean thoughts and words.

  Let the reader trust to his own natural instincts. Almost certainly,if a phrase or thought either shock or suggest the unclean, it isitself—as then used—unclean, false to life and nature; _and_ alsobad art. If you are told that the first slight shock, prick of theconscience, impulse to shrink away, is false hypocrisy, _do not believeit_.

  Nearly always the most inexperienced youth _feels straight_. Oncethe poison is drunk and you have let yourself go with the injecteddelirium, you will have lost the power to see and feel for yourself.