No, it was the spirit that troubled, as in dream, the waters of the pool, some influence which trembled between silence and a sound, a precarious6 confidence, an unavowed quest, a wisdom that came not of years or experience, a dissatisfaction, a doubt, a devotion, some strange presentiment7, it may have been, of the bitter years in store, in memory an ineffable8, irrevocable beauty, a visible seal on the forehead of a generation.
'When the lamp is shattered.
The light in the dust lies dead—
When the cloud is scattered9
The rainbow's glory is shed.
When the lute10 is broken,
Sweet tones are remembered not…'
Yet out of a thousand fragments this memory must be created anew in a form that will outlast11 the years, for it was precious. It was something that would vindicate12 an epoch13 against the sickening adulation of the hero-makers and against the charge of spiritual sterility14; a light in whose gleam the bewildering non-achievements of the present age, the art which seems not even to desire to be art, the faith which seems not to desire to be faith, have substance and meaning. It was shot through and through by an impulse of paradox15, an unconscious straining after the impossible, gathered into two or three tremulous years which passed too swiftly to achieve their own expression. Now, what remains16 of youth is cynical17, is successful, publicly exploits itself. It was not cynical then.
Elements of the influence that was are remembered only if they lasted long enough to receive a name. There was Unanimism. The name is remembered; perhaps the books are read. But it will not be found in the books. They are childish, just as the English novels which endeavoured to portray18 the soul of the generation were coarse and conceited19. Behind all the conscious manifestations20 of cleverness and complexity21 lay a fundamental candour of which only a flickering22 gleam can now be recaptured. It glints on a page of M. Romains's Europe; the memory of it haunts Wilfred Owen's poems; it touches Keeling's letters; it hovers23 over these letters of Charles Sorley.[14] From a hundred strange lurking-places it must be gathered by pious24 and sensitive fingers and withdrawn25 from under the very edge of the scythe-blade of time, for if it wander longer without a habitation it will be lost for ever.
[Footnote 14: The Letters of Charles Sorley. (Cambridge University
Press.)]
Charles Sorley was the youngest fringe of the strange unity26 that included him and men by ten years his senior. He had not, as they had, plunged27 with fantastic hopes and unspoken fears into the world. He had not learned the slogans of the day. But, seeing that the slogans were only a disguise for the undefined desires which inspired them he lost little and gained much thereby28. The years at Oxford29 in which he would have taken a temporary sameness, a sameness in the long run protective and strengthening, were spared him. In his letters we have him unspoiled, as the sentimentalists would say—not yet with the distraction31 of protective colouring.
One who knew him better than the mere32 reader of his letters can pretend to know him declares that, in spite of his poems, which are among the most remarkable33 of those of the boy-poets killed in the war, Sorley would not have been a man of letters. The evidence of the letters themselves is heavy against the view; they insist upon being regarded as the letters of a potential writer. But a passionate34 interest in literature is not the inevitable35 prelude36 to a life as a writer, and although it is impossible to consider any thread in Sorley's letters as of importance comparable to that which joins the enthronement and dethronement of his literary idols37, we shall regard it as the record of a movement of soul which might as easily find expression (as did Keeling's) in other than literary activities. It takes more than literary men to make a generation, after all.
And Sorley was typical above all in this, that, passionate and penetrating39 as was his devotion to literature, he never looked upon it as a thing existing in and for itself. It was, to him and his kind, the satisfaction of an impulse other and more complex than the ?sthetic. Art was a means and not an end to him, and it is perhaps the apprehension40 of this that has led one who endeavoured in vain to reconcile Sorley to Pater into rash prognostication. Sorley would never have been an artist in Pater's way; he belonged to his own generation, to which l'art pour l'art had ceased to have meaning. There had come a pause, a throbbing41 silence, from which art might have emerged, may even now after the appointed time arise, with strange validities undreamed of or forgotten. Let us not prophesy42; let us be content with the recognition that Sorley's generation was too keenly, perhaps too disastrously43 aware of destinies, of
'the beating of the wings of Love Shut out from his creation,'
to seek the comfort of the ivory tower.
Sorley first appears before us radiant with the white-heat of a schoolboy enthusiasm for Masefield. Masefield is—how we remember the feeling!—the poet who has lived; his naked reality tears through 'the lace of putrid44 sentimentalism (educing the effeminate in man) which rotters like Tennyson and Swinburne have taught his (the superficial man's) soul to love.' It tears through more than Tennyson and Swinburne. The greatest go down before him.
'So you see what I think of John Masefield. When I say that he has the rapidity, simplicity45, nobility of Homer, with the power of drawing character, the dramatic truth to life of Shakespeare, along with a moral and emotional strength and elevation46 which is all his own, and therefore I am prepared to put him above the level of these two great men—I do not expect you to agree with me.'—(From a paper read at Marlborough, November, 1912.)
That was Sorley at seventeen, and that, it seems to us, is the quality of enthusiasm which should be felt by a boy of seventeen if he is to make his mark. It is infinitely47 more important to have felt that flaming enthusiasm for an idol38 who will be cast down than to have felt what we ought to feel for Shakespeare and Homer. The gates of heaven are opened by strange keys, but they must be our own.
Within six months Masefield had gone the way of all flesh. In a paper on The Shropshire Lad (May, 1913), curious both for critical subtlety48 and the faint taste of disillusion49, Sorley was saying: 'His (Masefield's) return (to the earth) was purely50 emotional, and probably less interesting than the purely intellectual return of Meredith.' At the beginning of 1914, having gained a Scholarship at University College, Oxford, he went to Germany. Just before going he wrote:—
'I am just discovering Thomas Hardy. There are two methods of discovery. One is when Columbus discovers America. The other is when some one begins to read a famous author who has already run into seventy editions, and refuses to speak about anything else, and considers every one else who reads the author's works his own special converts. Mine is the second method. I am more or less Hardy-drunk.'
The humorous exactness and detachment of the description are remarkable, and we feel that there was more than the supersession51 of a small by a great idol in this second phase. By April he is at Jena, 'only 15 miles from Goethe's grave, whose inhabitant has taken the place of Thomas Hardy (successor to Masefield) as my favourite prophet.'
'I hope (if nothing else) before I leave Germany to get a thorough
hang of Faust…. The worst of a piece like Faust is that it
completely dries up any creative instincts or attempts in oneself.
There is nothing that I have ever thought or ever read that is not
somewhere contained in it, and (what is worse) explained in it.'
He had a sublime52 contempt for any one with whom he was not drunk. He lumped together 'nasty old Lyttons, Carlyles, and Dickenses.' And the intoxication53 itself was swift and fleeting54. There was something wrong with Goethe by July; it is his 'entirely55 intellectual' life.
'If Goethe really died saying "more light," it was very silly of him: what he wanted was more warmth.'
And he writes home for Richard Jefferies, the man of his own county—for through Marlborough he had made himself the adopted son of the Wiltshire Downs.
'In the midst of my setting up and smashing of deities—Masefield, Hardy, Goethe—I always fall back on Richard Jefferies wandering about in the background. I have at least the tie of locality with him.'
A day or two after we incidentally discover that Meredith is up (though not on Olympus) from a denunciation of Browning on the queer non- (or super-) ?sthetic grounds of which we have spoken:—
'There is much in B. I like. But my feeling towards him has (ever since I read his life) been that of his to the "Lost Leader." I cannot understand him consenting to live a purely literary life in Italy, or (worse still) consenting to be lionised by fashionable London society. And then I always feel that if less people read Browning, more would read Meredith (his poetry, I mean.)'
Then, while he was walking in the Moselle Valley, came the war. He had loved Germany, and the force of his love kept him strangely free from illusions; he was not the stuff that "our modern Elizabethans" are made of. The keen candour of spiritual innocence56 is in what he wrote while training at Shorncliffe:—
'For the joke of seeing an obviously just cause defeated, I hope Germany will win. It would do the world good, and show that real faith is not that which says "we must win for our cause is just," but that which says "our cause is just: therefore we can disregard defeat."'…
'England—I am sick of the sound of the word. In training to fight for England, I am training to fight for that deliberate hypocrisy57, that terrible middle-class sloth58 of outlook and appalling59 "imaginative indolence" that has marked us out from generation to generation…. And yet we have the impudence60 to write down Germany (who with all their bigotry61 are at least seekers) as "Huns," because they are doing what every brave man ought to do and making experiments in morality. Not that I approve of the experiment in this particular case. Indeed I think that after the war all brave men will renounce62 their country and confess that they are strangers and pilgrims on the earth. "For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country." But all these convictions are useless for me to state since I have not had the courage of them. What a worm one is under the cart-wheels—big, clumsy, careless, lumbering63 cart-wheels—of public opinion. I might have been giving my mind to fight against Sloth and Stupidity: instead, I am giving my body (by a refinement64 of cowardice) to fight against the most enterprising nation in the world.'
The wise arm-chair patriots65 will shake their heads; but there is more wisdom of spirit in these words than in all the newspaper leaders written throughout the war. Sorley was fighting for more than he said; he was fighting for his Wiltshire Downs as well. But he fought in complete and utter detachment. He died too soon (in October, 1915), to suffer the cumulative66 torment67 of those who lasted into the long agony of 1917. There is little bitterness in his letters; they have to the last always the crystal clarity of the vision of the unbroken.
His intellectual evolution went on to the end. No wonder that he found
Rupert Brooke's sonnets69 overpraised:—
'He is far too obsessed70 with his own sacrifice…. It was not that "they" gave up anything of that list he gives in one sonnet68: but that the essence of these things had been endangered by circumstances over which he had no control, and he must fight to recapture them. He has clothed his attitude in fine words: but he has taken the sentimental30 attitude.'
Remember that a boy of nineteen is writing, and think how keen is this criticism of Brooke's war sonnets; the seeker condemns71 without pity one who has given up the search. 'There is no such thing as a just war,' writes this boy. 'What we are doing is casting out Satan by Satan.' From this position Sorley never flinched72. Never for a moment was he renegade to his generation by taking 'the sentimental attitude.' Neither had he in him an atom of the narrowness of the straiter sect73.
Though space forbids, we will follow out his progress to the last. We do not receive many such gifts as this book; the authentic74 voice of those lost legions is seldom heard. We can afford, surely, to listen to it to the end. In November, 1914, Sorley turns back to the Hardy of the poems. After rejecting 'the actual "Satires75 of Circumstance"' as bad poetry, and passing an incisive76 criticism on 'Men who March away,' he continues:—
'I cannot help thinking that Hardy is the greatest artist of the English character since Shakespeare; and much of The Dynasts (except its historical fidelity) might be Shakespeare. But I value his lyrics77 as presenting himself (the self he does not obtrude78 into the comprehensiveness of his novels and The Dynasts) as truly, and with faults as well as strength visible in it, as any character in his novels. His lyrics have not the spontaneity of Shakespeare's or Shelley's; they are rough-hewn and jagged: but I like them and they stick.'
A little later, having finished The Egoist,—
'I see now that Meredith belongs to that class of novelists with whom I do not usually get on so well (e.g. Dickens), who create and people worlds of their own so that one approaches the characters with amusement, admiration79, or contempt, not with liking80 or pity, as with Hardy's people, into whom the author does not inject his own exaggerated characteristics.'
The great Russians were unknown to Sorley when he died. What would he not have found in those mighty81 seekers, with whom Hardy alone stands equal? But whatever might have been his vicissitudes82 in that strange company, we feel that Hardy could never have been dethroned in his heart, for other reasons than that the love of the Wessex hills had crept into his blood. He was killed on October 13, 1915, shot in the head by a sniper as he led his company at the 'hair-pin' trench83 near Hulluch.
[JANUARY, 1920.
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1
hardy
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| adj.勇敢的，果断的，吃苦的；耐寒的 | |
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awareness
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| n.意识，觉悟，懂事，明智 | |
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volatile
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| adj.反复无常的，挥发性的，稍纵即逝的，脾气火爆的；n.挥发性物质 | |
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instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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inexplicable
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| adj.无法解释的，难理解的 | |
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6
precarious
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| adj.不安定的，靠不住的；根据不足的 | |
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presentiment
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| n.预感，预觉 | |
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ineffable
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| adj.无法表达的，不可言喻的 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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lute
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| n.琵琶，鲁特琴 | |
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outlast
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| v.较…耐久 | |
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vindicate
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| v.为…辩护或辩解，辩明；证明…正确 | |
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epoch
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| n.(新)时代；历元 | |
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sterility
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| n.不生育，不结果，贫瘠，消毒，无菌 | |
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paradox
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| n.似乎矛盾却正确的说法；自相矛盾的人(物) | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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portray
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| v.描写，描述；画(人物、景象等) | |
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19
conceited
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| adj.自负的，骄傲自满的 | |
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manifestations
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| n.表示，显示（manifestation的复数形式） | |
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complexity
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| n.复杂(性)，复杂的事物 | |
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flickering
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| adj.闪烁的，摇曳的，一闪一闪的 | |
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hovers
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| 鸟( hover的第三人称单数 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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24
pious
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| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
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25
withdrawn
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| vt.收回；使退出；vi.撤退，退出 | |
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26
unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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distraction
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| n.精神涣散，精神不集中，消遣，娱乐 | |
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32
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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35
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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prelude
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| n.序言，前兆，序曲 | |
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37
idols
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| 偶像( idol的名词复数 )； 受崇拜的人或物； 受到热爱和崇拜的人或物； 神像 | |
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idol
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| n.偶像，红人，宠儿 | |
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penetrating
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| adj.（声音）响亮的，尖锐的adj.（气味）刺激的adj.（思想）敏锐的，有洞察力的 | |
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apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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41
throbbing
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| a. 跳动的,悸动的 | |
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42
prophesy
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| v.预言；预示 | |
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disastrously
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| ad.灾难性地 | |
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putrid
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| adj.腐臭的；有毒的；已腐烂的；卑劣的 | |
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simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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elevation
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| n.高度；海拔；高地；上升；提高 | |
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infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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subtlety
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| n.微妙，敏锐，精巧；微妙之处，细微的区别 | |
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49
disillusion
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| vt.使不再抱幻想，使理想破灭 | |
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50
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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51
supersession
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| 取代，废弃； 代谢 | |
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sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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53
intoxication
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| n.wild excitement;drunkenness；poisoning | |
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fleeting
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| adj.短暂的，飞逝的 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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hypocrisy
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| n.伪善，虚伪 | |
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sloth
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| n.[动]树懒；懒惰，懒散 | |
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appalling
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| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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impudence
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| n.厚颜无耻；冒失；无礼 | |
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bigotry
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| n.偏见，偏执，持偏见的行为[态度]等 | |
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62
renounce
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| v.放弃；拒绝承认，宣布与…断绝关系 | |
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lumbering
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| n.采伐林木 | |
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refinement
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| n.文雅；高尚；精美；精制；精炼 | |
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patriots
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| 爱国者，爱国主义者( patriot的名词复数 ) | |
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cumulative
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| adj.累积的，渐增的 | |
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torment
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| n.折磨；令人痛苦的东西(人)；vt.折磨；纠缠 | |
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68
sonnet
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| n.十四行诗 | |
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sonnets
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| n.十四行诗( sonnet的名词复数 ) | |
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obsessed
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| adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的 | |
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condemns
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| v.（通常因道义上的原因而）谴责( condemn的第三人称单数 )；宣判；宣布…不能使用；迫使…陷于不幸的境地 | |
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72
flinched
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| v.（因危险和痛苦）退缩，畏惧( flinch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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73
sect
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| n.派别，宗教，学派，派系 | |
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authentic
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| a.真的，真正的；可靠的，可信的，有根据的 | |
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75
satires
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| 讽刺，讥讽( satire的名词复数 )； 讽刺作品 | |
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76
incisive
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| adj.敏锐的，机敏的，锋利的，切入的 | |
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lyrics
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| n.歌词 | |
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obtrude
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| v.闯入；侵入；打扰 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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80
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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81
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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82
vicissitudes
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| n.变迁，世事变化；变迁兴衰( vicissitude的名词复数 )；盛衰兴废 | |
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83
trench
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| n./v.(挖)沟，(挖)战壕 | |
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