What I would rather see is
an elasticity, a recklessness, a prodigal trying of experiments, a
discontented underrating of past traditions, than a meek acquiescence
in their supremacy. What is our present condition? We have few poets of
the first rank, few essayists or reflective writers, few dramatists,
few biographers. I do not at all wish to underrate the immense vitality
of our imaginative faculties, which shows itself in our vast output of
fiction; but even here we have few masters, and our critics know and
care little for style; they are entirely preoccupied with plot and
incident and situation. What we lack is true originality, tranquil
force; we are all occupied in trying to startle and surprise, to make a
sensation. How little the Greeks cared for that! It was beauty and
charm, delicate colour, fine subtlety of which they were, in search;
they held all things holy, yet nothing solemn. Their dignity was not a
pompous dignity, but the dignity of high tragedy, of unconquerable
courage and ruthless fate; not the dignity of the well-appointed house
and the tradition of excellent manners.
Of course our love of wealth and comfort is to a certain extent
responsible for this. We have been thrown off our balance by the vast
and rapid development of the resources of the earth, the binding of
natural forces to do our bidding; it is the most complicated thing in
the world nowadays to live the simple life; and not until we can gain a
rich simplicity, not until we can recover an interest in ideas rather
than an appetite for comforts, will our force and vitality return to
us.
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