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Page 19
FRENCH AND BRITISH ACADEMIES
[_21 Jan. '09_]
Although we know in our hearts that the French Academy is a foolish
institution, designed and kept up for the encouragement of mediocrity,
correct syntax, and the _status quo_, we still, also in our hearts, admire
it and watch its mutations with the respect which we always give to
foreign phenomena and usually withold from phenomena British. The last
elected member is M. Francis Charmes. His sole title to be an Academician
is that he directs _La Revue des Deux Mondes_, which pays good prices to
Academic contributors. And this is, of course, a very good title. Even his
official "welcomer," M. Henry Houssaye, did not assert that M. Charmes had
ever written anything more important or less mortal than leaders and
paragraphs in the _Journal des D�bats_. M. Henry Houssaye was himself once
a journalist. But he thought better of that, and became a historian. He
has written one or two volumes which, without being unreadable, have
achieved immense popularity. Stevenson used to delve in them for matter
suitable to his romances. The French Academy now contains pretty nearly
everything except first-class literary artists. Anatole France is a
first-class literary artist and an Academician; but he makes a point of
never going near the Academy. Perhaps the best writer among "devout"
Academicians is Maurice Barr�s. Unhappily his comic-opera politics prove
that in attempting Parnassus he mistook his mountain. Primrose Hill would
have been more in his line. Still, he wrote "Le Jardin de B�r�nice": a
novel which I am afraid to read again lest I should fail to recapture the
first fine careless rapture it gave me.
* * * * *
Personally, I think our British Academy is a far more brilliant affair
than the French. There is no nonsense about it. At least very little,
except Mr. Balfour. I believe, from inductive processes of thought, that
when Mr. Balfour gets into his room of a night he locks the door--and
smiles. Not the urbane smile that fascinates and undoes even Radical
journalists--quite another smile. Never could this private smile have been
more subtle than on the night of the day when he permitted himself to be
elected a member of the British Academy. Further, let it not be said that
our Academy excludes novelists and journalists. We novelists are ably
represented by Mr. Andrew Lang, author of "Prince Prigio" and part-author
of "The World's Desire." And we journalists have surely an adequate
spokesman in the person of the author of "Lost Leaders." Mr. Lang has also
dabbled in history.
POE AND THE SHORT STORY
[_28 Jan. '09_]
The great Edgar Allen Poe celebration has passed off, and no one has been
seriously hurt by the terrific display of fireworks. Some of the set
pieces were pretty fair; for example, Mr. G.B. Shaw's in the _Nation_ and
Prof. C.H. Herford's in the _Manchester Guardian_. On the whole, however,
the enthusiasm was too much in the nature of mere good form. If only we
could have a celebration of Omar Khayy�m, Tennyson, Gilbert White, or the
inventor of Bridge, the difference between new and manufactured enthusiasm
would be apparent. We have spent several happy weeks in conceitedly
explaining to that barbaric race, the Americans, that in Poe they have
never appreciated their luck. Yet we ourselves have never understood Poe.
And we never shall understand Poe. It is immensely to our credit that,
owing to the admirable obstinacy of Mr. J.H. Ingram, we now admit that Poe
was neither a drunkard, a debauchee, nor a cynical eremite. This is about
as far as we shall get. Poe's philosophy of art, as discovered in his
essays and his creative work, is purely Latin and, as such,
incomprehensible and even naughty to the Saxon mind. To the average
bookish Englishman Poe means "The Pit and the Pendulum," and his finest
poetry means nothing at all. Tell that Englishman that Poe wrote more
beautiful lyrics than Tennyson, and he will blankly put you down as mad.
(So shall I.)
* * * * *
Once, and not many years since, I contemplated editing a complete edition
of Poe, with a brilliant introduction in which I was to show that the
appearance of a temperament like his in the United States in the early
years of the nineteenth century was the most puzzling miracle that can be
found in the whole history of literature. Then, naturally, I intended to
explain the miracle. My plans were placed before a wise and good
publisher, whose reply was to indicate two very respectable complete
editions of Poe which had eminently failed with the public. Further
inquiries satisfied me that the public had no immediate use for anything
elaborate, final, and expensive concerning Poe. My bright desire therefore
paled and flickered out. Since then I have come to the conclusion that I
know practically nothing of the "secret of Poe," and that nobody else
knows much more.
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