WRITERS WITHOUT MESSAGES

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 978, 19 November 1910, Page 9

WRITERS WITHOUT MESSAGES

■ Writing on. "Fifty Years of Literature in the jubilee number of "Piiblir Opinion," Dr. C. T. Hagberg Wright, hbranan of the London Library is pessimistic about the present. We are wholly given up to realism and materialism, he says. People do not want to read. "Things of no moment arc thought vital." Dr. Wright proceeds: There are—who can gainsay "it?—men of genius among the authors of the present day not a whit less great than their fathers—Kipling, the poet of patriotism and empire; Hewlett, the sincere anarchist; Wells, the scientific novelist and social reformer; Galsworthy, and others. ( They have destroyed many of the ideals of those who preceded them, perhaps not wholly without cause, and with a stern violence have compelled our eyes to see things around us; they have sketched life in our,lanes, alleys, and villages with almost brutal truthfulness, and have shown us the human heart.heating there; tliey have laid bare the wretchedness of social condii tions, and 'drawn vices and evils out of secret and unknown places. But they have not illumined the gloom with much hope or faith—they, seem nearly all [jossiniists,

Wells, for instance) keen social -reformer as ho really is, draws Utopias for us whoro labour, "tho last baso reason for anyone's servitude," will lie abolished, and- where all subjection will ceaso; but this result is to bo attained by tile advance of science. Nor is ho encouraging when he talks of himself as tho "flimsiest of absurdities," and and as a part of. a scheme which ho does not understand. His art is great, but his message full of mysticism and doubt.

Tho younger men write for popularity or for notoriety, not because they have something to say. They have really no messago to deliver. They assuroo a manner in their work to attract attention, and indulge in extravagances' to humour tho reader. As for faith or,belief in earth or in heaven, they are devoid of it. Simplicity, tho mark of all great art, is scorned. Consumed by a desire to bo original, they develop eccentrioities which amuse and -pleaso but have no tinge of greatness in them. They do not even lovo; the.v aro too egotistical and selfish. Modern writers' sympathy is wholly with failure; their works aro <a very apotheosis of. the unsuccessful. They revel in psychic dissection. - Perhaps they are not altogether to .blame —tho ago is one of sickly simpering sentimentality and a crazy longing to be philanthropic, and the pity of it is, in a way which degenerates the giver and receiver. Dickens pictured the actual ways and doings and thoughts of tho lower classes; tho present-day novelist dopicts the tramp longing for his bath! The mistaken notion prevails that tho author must feel everything himself; but genius should, and does, possess, joined to tho power of expression, a sympathetic imagination. It was in this • that Dickens's great strength .lay. It is one thing to sing of tho poor, but quite another to do as Burns did, to sing the poor. Another crazo which destroys is the craze for emancipation; young and old are seeking they know not. what. An impatience of discipline and control pervades society, a heedlessness and contempt for rules, all of which things create irresponsibility. Can one wonder that the presentday literature reflects the actions and groping endeavours of the people of today?. The hurrying journalist, clever though ho be, who works fast, "dashing, scrawling," rises to fame in a day, and his ebullitions count as literature., Poor fellow! Ho never enjoys, any leisure in which to, reflect, 'to guido, -or to suggest; he flings his pages down half digested, and - his reader scrambles through them with his mind half -turned towards a-- gliding aeroplane. . There is' no time for faith, hope, or charity. _ Faith has become paralysed, "the profoundest reason of this, darkness of heart." To bo . moro. than tho amusement or instruction, of the moment, tho author must havo a message, a message' which carries conviction, and -that message must be conveyed in language that is simple. Ho must speak out fearlessly, while declaiming, against all that is false and -hypocritical, as Carlylo did; he must, like Carlyle, admire and reverence all that is great and \ioblo in tho acts of . human beings, all that is sacred and wholesome in human institutions. Intellect alone, however fine a quality, will not.serve; it must be touched with' that emotion which makes tho power of the messago survive "deep in tho general'heart of moil."