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<h2>CHAPTER XXX</h2> <h2>PRAYERS FOR THE LIVING</h2> (From the editorial page of the New York Sun, December 31, 1916) It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from their sins; and it is as holy a prayer that begs from the god of chance his pity for the living. Aye! it is those who are about to live, not to die, that we should salute. Life is the eternal slayer; death is but the final punctuation of the vital paragraph. Life is also the betrayer. A cosmical conspiracy of deception encircles us. We call it Maya, and flatter our finite sense of humour that we are no longer entrapped by the shining appearance of things when we say aloud: Stay, thou art so subtle that we know you for what you are—the profoundest instinct of life: its cruel delight in pretending to be what it is not. We are now, all of us who think that we think, newly born Fausts with eyes unbandaged of the supreme blinders, Time and Space. Nature clothes the skeleton in a motley suit of flesh, but our supersharpened ears overhear the rattling of the bones. We are become so wise that love itself is no longer a sentiment, only a sensation; religion [Pg 354] is first cousin to voluptuousness; and if we are so minded we may jig to the tune of the stars up the dazzling staircase, and sneer at the cloud-gates of the infinite inane. Naught succeeds like negation, and we swear that in the house of the undertaker it is impolite to speak of shrouds. We are nothing if not determinists. And we believe that the devil deserves the hindmost. We live in order to forget life. For our delicate machinery of apperception there is no longer right or wrong; vice and virtue are the acid and alkali of existence. And as too much acid deranges the stomach, so vice corrodes the soul, and thus we are virtuous by compulsion. Yet we know that evil serves its purpose in the vast chemistry of being, and if banished the consequences might not be for universal good; other evils would follow in the train of a too comprehensive mitigation, and our end a stale swamp of vain virtues. Resist not evil! Which may mean the reverse of what it seems to preach. The master modern immoralist has said: Embrace evil! that we may be over and done with it. Toys are our ideals; glory, goodness, wealth, health, happiness; all toys except health; health of the body, of the soul. And the first shall be last. The human soul in health? But there is no spiritual health. The mystic, Doctor Tauler, has said: "God does not reside in a vigorous body"; sinister; nevertheless, equitable. The [Pg 355] dolorous certitude that the most radiant of existences ends in the defeat of disease and death; that happiness is relative, a word empty of meaning in the light of experience, and non-existent as an absolute; that the only divine oasis in our feverish activities is sleep; sleep the prelude to the profound and eternal silence—why then this gabble about soul-states and the peace that passeth all understanding? Simply because the red corpuscles that rule our destinies are, when dynamic, mighty breeders of hope; if the powers and principalities of darkness prevail, our guardian angels, the phagocytes, are dominated by the leucocytes. Gods and devils, Ormuzd and Ahriman, and other phantasms of the sky, may all be put on a microscopic slide and their struggles noted. And the evil ones are ever victors in the diabolical game. No need to insist on it. In the heart of mankind there is a tiny shrine with its burning taper; the idol is Self; the propitiatory light is for subliminal foes. Alas! in vain. We succumb, and in our weakness we sink into the grave. If only we were sure of the River Styx afterward we should pay the ferry-tax with joy. Better Hades than the poppy of oblivion. "Ready to be anything in the ecstasy of being ever," as Sir Thomas Browne sagely remarks. The pious and worthy Doctor Jeremy Taylor, who built cathedral-like structures of English prose to the greater glory of God and for the [Pg 356] edification of ambitious rhetoricians, has dwelt upon the efficacy of prayer in a singularly luminous passage: "Holy prayer procures the ministry and services of angels. It rescinds the decrees of God. It cures sickness and obtains pardon. It arrests the sun in its course and stays the wheels of the chariot of the moon. It rules over all God's creatures and opens and shuts the storehouses of rain. It unlocks the cabinet of the womb and quenches the violence of fire. It stops the mouths of lions and reconciles our sufferance and weak faculties with the violence of torment and sharpness of persecution. It pleases God and supplies all our needs. But prayer that can do this much for us can do nothing at all without holiness, for God heareth not sinners, but if any man be a worshipper of God and doth His will, him He heareth." It should not be forgotten that Taylor, perhaps the greatest English prose-master save John Milton, was a stickler for good works as well as faith. He was considered almost heterodox because of his violence of speech when the subject of death-bed repentance became a topic of discussion; indeed, his bishop remonstrated with him because of his stiff-necked opinions. To joust through life as at a pleasure tournament and when the dews of death dampen the forehead to call on God in your extremity seemed to this eloquent divine an act of slinking cowardice. Far better face the evil one in a defiant spirit than knock for [Pg 357] admittance at the back door of paradise and try to sneak by the winged policeman into a vulgar bliss: unwon, unhoped for, undeserved. Therefore the rather startling statement, "God heareth not sinners," read in the light of Bishop Taylor's fervent conception of man's duty, hath its justification. But this atmosphere of proverbial commonplaces and "inspissated gloom" should not be long maintained when the coursers of the sun are plunging southward in the new year; when the Huntsman is up at Oyster Bay and "they are already past their first sleep in Persia." What a bold and adventurous piece of nature is man; yet how he stares at life as a frowning entertainment. Why must we "act our antipodes" when "all Africa and her prodigies are in us"? Ergo, let us be cheerful. God is with the world. Let us pray that during the ensuing year no rust shall colour our soul into a dingy red. Let us pray for the living that they may be loosed from their politics and see life steadily and whole. Let us pray that we may not take it on ourselves to feel holier than our neighbours. Let us pray that we be not cursed with the itching desire to reform our fellows, for the way of the reformer is hard, and he always gets what he deserves: the contempt of his fellow men. He is usually a hypocrite. Let us pray that we are not struck by religious zeal; religious people are not always good people; good people are [Pg 358] not envious, jealous, penurious, censorious, or busybodies, or too much bound up in the prospect of the mote in their brother's eye and unmindful of the beam in their own. Furthermore, good people do not unveil with uncharitable joy the faults of women. Have faith. Have hope, and remember that charity is as great as chastity. Let us pray for the misguided folk who, forgetful of Mother Church, her wisdom, her consolations, flock to the tents of lewd, itinerant, mumbo-jumbo howlers, that blaspheme the sacred name as they epileptically leap, shouting glory-kingdom-come and please settle at the captain's office. Though they run on all fours and bark as hyenas, they shall not enter the city of the saints, being money-changers in the Temple, and tripe-sellers of souls. Better Tophet and its burning pitch than a wilderness of such apes of God. Some men and women of culture and social position indorse these sorry buffoons, the apology for their paradoxical conduct being any port in a storm; any degrading circus, so it be followed by a mock salvation. But salvation for whom? What deity cares for such foaming at the mouth, such fustian? Conversion is silent and comes from within, and not to the din of brass-bands and screaming hallelujahs. It takes all sorts of gods to make the cosmos, but why return to the antics and fetishes of our primate ancestors, the cave-dwellers? [Pg 359] This squirming and panting and brief reform "true religion"? On the contrary it is a throwback to bestiality, to the vilest instincts. A "soul" that has to be saved by such means is a soul not worth the saving. To the discard with it, where, flaming in purgatorial fires, it may be refashioned for future reincarnation on some other planet. Abuse of drink is to be deplored, but Prohibition is more enslaving than alcohol. Paganism in its most exotic forms is preferable to this prize-ring Christianity. One may be zealous without wallowing in debasing superstition. Again, let us pray for these imbeciles and for the charlatans who are blinding them. Neither arts and sciences nor politics and philosophies will save the soul. The azure route lies beyond the gates of ivory and the gates of horn. Let us pray for our sisters, the suffragettes, who are still suffering from the injustice of Man, now some million of years. Let us pray that they be given the ballot to prove to them its utter futility as a cure-all. With it they shall be neither happier nor different. Once a woman, always a martyr. Let them not be deceived by illusive phrases. If they had not been oppressed they would to-day be "free"! Alas! free from their sex? Free from the burden of family? Free like men to carry on the rude labours of this ruder earth? To what purpose? To become second-rate men, when [Pg 360] nature has endowed them with qualities that men vainly emulate, vainly seek to evoke their spirit in the arts and literature! Ages past woman should have attained that impossible goal, oppression or no; in fact, adversity has made man what he is—and woman, too. Pray, that she may not be tempted by the mirage into the desert, there to perish of thirst for the promised land. Nearly a century ago George Sand was preaching the equality of the sexes, and rightly enough. What has come of it? The vote? Political office? Professions, business opportunities? Yes, all these things, but not universal happiness. Woman's sphere—stale phrase!—is any one she hankers after; but let her not deceive herself. Her future will strangely resemble her past. William Dean Howells was not wrong when he wrote: Woman has only her choice in self-sacrifice. And sometimes not even the choosing. Why? Why are eclipses? Why are some men prohibitionists? Why do hens cluck after laying eggs? Let us pray for warring women that their politically ambitious leaders may no longer dupe them with fallacious promises—surely a "pathetic fallacy." But, then, females rush in where fools fear to tread. And lastly, beloved sisters and brothers, let us heartily pray that our imperial democracy (or is it a democratic empire?), our plutocratic republic (or should we say republican plutocracy?) may be kept from war; avoid [Pg 361] "the drums and tramplings of three conquests." But by the Eternal Jehovah, God of battles, if we are forced to fight, then let us fight like patriotic Americans, and not gently coo, like pacifists and other sultry south winds. A billion for "preparedness," but not a penny for "pork," say we. And by the same token let us pray that those thundering humbugs and parasites who call themselves labour leaders—the blind leading the blind—for ever vanish. Because of their contumacious acts and egregious bamboozling of their victims, because of their false promises of an earthly paradise and a golden age, they deserve the harshest condemnation. Like certain Oriental discourses, our little Morality which began in the mosque has rambled not far from the tavern. Nevertheless, let us pray for the living as well as the dead. Oremus! [Pg 362] <hr style="width: 100%;" /> <div class="pagewidth1"> <div id="books_by"> <div id="books_quotes"> <h2 class="u">BOOKS BY JAMES HUNEKER</h2> What some distinguished writers have said of them: Maurice Maeterlinck wrote, May 15, 1905: "Do you know that 'Iconoclasts' is the only book of high and universal critical worth that we have had for years—to be precise, since Georg Brandes. It is at once strong and fine, supple and firm, indulgent and sure." And of "Ivory Apes and Peacocks" he said, among other things: "I have marvelled at the vigilance and clarity with which you follow and judge the new literary and artistic movements in all countries. I do not know of criticism more pure and sure than yours." (October, 1915.) <hr style='width: 45%;' /> Of "Visionaries" Remy de Gourmont wrote, June 22, 1906: "I am convinced that you have written a very curious, very beautiful book, and one of that sort comes to us rarely." <hr style='width: 45%;' /> Paul Bourget wrote, Lundi de Paques, 1909, of "Egoists": "I have browsed through the pages of your book and found that you touch in a sympathetic style on diverse problems, artistic and literary. In the case of Stendhal your catholicity of treatment is extremely rare and courageous." <hr style='width: 45%;' /> Dr. Georg Brandes, the versatile and profound Danish critic, wrote: "I find your breadth of view and its expression more European than American; but the essential thing is that you are an artist to your very marrow." <hr style='width: 45%;' /></div> <div id="other_books"> <h3>IVORY APES AND PEACOCKS</h3> 12mo. $1.50 net "Out of the depressing welter of our American writing upon æsthetics, with its incredible thinness and triteness and paltriness, its intellectual sterility, its miraculous dulness, its limitless and appalling vapidity, Mr. James Huneker, and the small and honorable minority of his peers, emerge with a conspicuousness that is both comforting and disgraceful.... Susceptibility, clairvoyance, immediacy of response, are his; he is the friend of any talent that is fine and strange and frank enough to incur the dislike of the mighty army of Bourbons, Puritans, and Bœotians. He is innocent of prepossessions. He is infinitely flexible and generous. Yet if, in the twenty years that we have been reading him, he has ever praised a commonplace talent, we have no recollection of it. His critical tact is well-nigh infallible.... His position among writers on æsthetics is anomalous and incredible: no merchant traffics in his heart, yet he commands a large, an eager, an affectionate public. Is it because he is both vivid and acute, robust yet fine-fingered, tolerant yet unyielding, astringent yet tender—a mellow pessimist, a kindly cynic? Or is it rather because he is, primarily, a temperament—dynamic, contagious, lovable, inveterately alive—expressing itself through the most transparent of the arts?"—Lawrence Gilman, in North American Review (October, 1915). <hr class="m" /> <h3>NEW COSMOPOLIS</h3> 12mo. $1.50 net "Mr. James Huneker, critic of music in the first place, is a craftsman of diverse accomplishment who occupies a distinctive and distinguished place among present-day American essayists. He is intensely 'modern,' well read in recent European writers, and not lacking sympathy with the more rebellious spirits. Ancient serenity has laid no chastening hand on his thought and style, but he has achieved at times a fineness of expression that lifts his work above that of the many eager and artistic souls who strive to be the thinkers of New England to-day. He flings off his impressions at fervent heat; he is not ashamed to be enthusiastic; and he cannot escape that large sentimentality which, to less disciplined transatlantic writers, is known nakedly as 'heart interest.' Out of his chaos of reading and observation he has, however, evolved a criticism of life that makes for intellectual cultivation, although it is of a Bohemian rather than an academic kind. Given a different environment, another training, Mr. Huneker might have emerged as an American Walter Pater."—London Athenæum (November 6, 1915). <hr class="m" /> <h3>MELOMANIACS</h3> 12mo. $1.50 net "It would be difficult to sum up 'Melomaniacs' in a phrase. Never did a book, in my opinion at any rate, exhibit greater contrasts, not, perhaps, of strength and weakness, but of clearness and obscurity. It is inexplicably uneven, as if the writer were perpetually playing on the boundary line that divides sanity of thought from intellectual chaos. There is method in the madness, but it is a method of intangible ideas. Nevertheless, there is genius written over a large portion of it, and to a musician the wealth of musical imagination is a living spring of thought."—Harold E. Gorst, in London Saturday Review (Dec. 8,1906). <hr class="m" /> <h3>VISIONARIES</h3> 12mo. $1.50 net "In 'The Spiral Road' and in some of the other stories both fantasy and narrative may be compared with Hawthorne in his most unearthly moods. The younger man has read his Nietzsche and has cast off his heritage of simple morals. Hawthorne's Puritanism finds no echo in these modern souls, all sceptical, wavering, and unblessed. But Hawthorne's splendor of vision and his power of sympathy with a tormented mind do live again in the best of Mr. Huneker's stories."—London Academy (Feb. 3, 1906). <hr class="m" /> <h3>ICONOCLASTS: A Book of Dramatists</h3> 12mo. $1.50 net "His style is a little jerky, but it is one of those rare styles in which we are led to expect some significance, if not wit, in every sentence."—G. K. Chesterton, in London Daily News. <hr class="m" /> <h3>MEZZOTINTS IN MODERN MUSIC</h3> 12mo. $1.50 net "Mr. Huneker is, in the best sense, a critic; he listens to the music and gives you his impressions as rapidly and in as few words as possible; or he sketches the composers in fine, broad, sweeping strokes with a magnificent disregard for unimportant details. And as Mr. Huneker is, as I have said, a powerful personality, a man of quick brain and an energetic imagination, a man of moods and temperament—a string that vibrates and sings in response to music—we get in these essays of his a distinctly original and very valuable contribution to the world's tiny musical literature."—J. F. 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The book is stimulating; brilliant even with an unexpected brilliancy."—Chicago Tribune. <hr class="m" /> <h3>PROMENADES OF AN IMPRESSIONIST</h3> 12mo. $1.50 net "We like best such sober essays as those which analyze for us the technical contributions of Cézanne and Rodin. Here Mr. Huneker is a real interpreter, and here his long experience of men and ways in art counts for much. Charming, in the slighter vein, are such appreciations as the Monticelli and Chardin."—Frank Jewett Mather, Jr., in New York Nation and Evening Post. <hr class="m" /> <h3>EGOISTS WITH PORTRAIT AND FACSIMILE REPRODUCTIONS</h3> 12mo. $1.50 net "Closely and yet lightly written, full of facts, yet as amusing as a bit of discursive talk, penetrating, candid, and very shrewd."—Royal Cortissoz, in the New York Tribune. <hr /> <h3>CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, NEW YORK</h3></div> </div></div> </div>   <div id="tnotes_full" class="tnote"> <h2>TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES</h2> The original punctuation and spelling were retained, with the exception of a few printer's mistakes. The text contains also inconsistently spelled words. The full list of changes to the text is as following: <ul> <li>: Lizst changed to Liszt</li> <li>: Henri de Regnier changed to Henri de Régnier</li> <li>: immediable changed to irremediable</li> <li>: Maurice Barres changed to Maurice Barrès</li> <li>: idylic changed to idyllic</li> <li>: (Consider changed to Consider Explanation: the opening bracket (with no corresponding closing bracket) was removed.</li> <li>: hippogrifs changed to hippogriffs</li> <li>: misanthrophy changed to misanthropy</li> <li>: Huysman's changed to Huysmans's</li> <li>, : Barbey d'Aurevilly changed to Barbey d'Aurévilly</li> <li>: promegranates changed to pomegranates</li> <li>: Musica changed to Musical</li> <li>: Cujol changed to Cajal</li> <li>: Facino Cano changed to Facino Cane</li> <li>: Frederic Chopin changed to Frédéric Chopin</li> <li>: I'm a Social-Democrat now. changed to "I'm a Social-Democrat now. Explanation: opening double quote added.</li> <li>: sich changed to such</li> <li>: exclaims Maeterlinck," yet changed to exclaims Maeterlinck, "yet Explanation: the double quote was moved to the next sentence.</li> <li>: De Beriot changed to De Bériot</li> </ul> Please note that the text contains inconsistently spelled words or phrases that were not changed. The following is a list of those words. The number in brackets denotes the number of occurences of each such word or phrase. <ul> <li>Cafe (1), Café (1)</li> <li>Eugene Ysaye (1), Eugène Ysaye (1)</li> <li>Karl Heymann (1), Carl Heyman (1)</li> <li>Trocadero (1), Trocadéro (2)</li> <li>bird-like (1), birdlike (1)</li> <li>bric-à-brac (1), bric-a-brac (1)</li> <li>free-will (1), free will (1)</li> <li>rusé (1), ruse (1)</li> <li>shadow-land (1), shadow land (1)</li> </ul></div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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