"And to look behind, to peer through the panorama, to see all this, to have a sense of humor and to have it bad, is not such a cheerful thing as it is thought to be, for it is also a sense of our hopelessness. It is a sad business, this jesting about the human tragedy—or the human farce. In other words, it is to see the futility of all our efforts, the failure of all our fighting, the uselessness of our aspirations, the emptiness of our aims, the vanity of our strivings, the nothingness of it all. Life, with all its faults and foibles and failures, with all its incongruities, irreconcilables, clashes and unfitnesses, stretches out before you as just so much material for sardonic satire. Scrambling, squabbling, scurrying, seething, squally squads and crowds of humanity, how gruesomely grotesque it all is and how ludicrous! With all its heroics, brave deeds and still greater bravadoes, with all its gloried wonders and wonderful achievements, with all its glorious boasts, lofty hopes and superb masteries, with all our arts and philosophies, humanity and the whole world seems to me like a swarming mole-hill, and at times moves me to nothing but to laughter. It is so ridiculous, all the mimicry of the whole microcosm. Tell me, have you ever been seized by a sense of the utter absurdity of it all, so that you laughed and laughed until there were tears of blood, almost, in your eyes?
"I wonder if you know what it is to have a mocking demon within you to laugh and leer at everything you do, at every step you take, at your best deeds, finest words, greatest strides, noblest endeavors. Imagine a voice that at every turn of the road—especially when you act your grandest, talk your loudest, achieve your highest—that at every turn of the road exclaims: 'How absurd, how silly of you!' Imagine a state of mind when all is farce around you and your own caricature is your constant companion. Such things happen to some people, and to them everything is so unreal, so absurd, so stupid; the greatest events, the sublimest utterances, are ever so laughable. The more seriously the people play their parts the more ridiculous the performance seems. The greater the tragedy the more laughter. What is so funny as Hamlet's soliloquy? What are so laughable as the ravings of Job? And so it sometimes feels with the other sublimely sad things that have been written. The moving finger writes, and the mocking voice within laughs—laughs at everything and you can take nothing seriously. You take up the best, the most pathetic things you have written yourself, and even these make you smile. Such things have been said before and they were absurd and out of place—in the first place. Whatever you do you hear the mocking voice from within say: 'Silly creature, those things have been done before, and they have only led fools to their dusty death.' You whisper the sweetest things, prompted by love to your lady fair, and the voice from within: 'Silly fool, these things have been said before and the course of true love never did run long.' You have a feeling that it is all histrionic, all acting, all farce, and that we are all overdoing our parts tremendously. Strutting, swaggering, blustering, bombastic swashbucklers all. It is not life. It is an historical novel. It will sink into nothingness. 'O, Thor, du Thor, du prahlender Thor!' Do you remember Bret Harte's parody on Hugo's 'Les Misérables'? So easily is the sublime tipped over and made ridiculous. 'Tis but a slight step from pathos to bathos. But wait until I address this letter to the New York 'Abend Blatt.' Abe Cahan came over here and spoke for the Socialists this afternoon, so I wrote the thing up. He is in the other room with that blatant crowd of Jewish actors. They are taking him to task for one of his reviews in the 'Arbeiter Zeitung' of a recent performance of theirs. They never know exactly what a critic means except when he does not criticise. They are to give here Gordin's 'Jewish King Lear' to-morrow night. You don't know Cahan? He is one of the brightest, biggest men in our movement. I come in here," Keidansky explained, "because these actors are so ignorant of the conventions, simple and natural, and I like them for it.
"There is a story by J. L. Peretz," Keidansky continued, after he had folded up and addressed his communication, "that I want to tell you apropos of what I have been saying. Peretz is one of the literary masters of to-day, but he writes in Yiddish, so the world misses his greatness. The story is about a reformer, a revolutionary, an idealist. He addresses a meeting in behalf of his cause, speaks fervently, passionately, 'spits fire,' waves a sharp sword at his audience and makes a ringing appeal for the truth. In the room where he speaks there is a mirror. Accidentally he looks into it. He sees himself. His enthusiasm leaves him at once, his fervor vanishes, he loses his power of speech, becomes calm, indifferent, and finishes his oration in disgust. He no longer feels the saint and hero he felt. While speaking so excitedly he looked like a murderer in the mirror. After this he has an unearthly dream about the part of hell that is allotted to reformers. When he wakes up he receives a postal card asking him to come to another meeting of the revolutionists. He immediately burns the card. This is giving but the faintest outlines of the story, but you see Peretz, like Heine, also has the sense of humor developed to a tragic extent—to the extent of seeing the absurdity, futility and irony of it all—even our grandest efforts.
"Yes, so it seems to some eyes, and so it is at least to those who see it so. After all, what is it? A cry and a struggle and a sigh, a flash of light and a streak of dawn and darkness, and then we stand by the grave and weep for the dead that the living may see our tears. Ah, the helplessness and hopelessness of it all; the desolation and despondency, the thoughts that paralyze the mind and stifle the soul; all things out of joint, out of proportion, and Fate cries out to you in the slang phrase 'you don't fit!' Ah, the humor of the entire procession and the deep tragic background behind it. Seek and you will find, and when you find you shall not want it. Wealth makes us weary of it. Fame brings her wreath and finds her poet dead. Faith consoles, but we have the consciousness all along that we are sick and are taking medicine. 'Love grows hate for love's sake and life takes death for guide.' Love? Have ever two souls come near each other? Those whom we love most understand us least. Happiness? The art of finding happiness is one of the lost arts. No one is ever consciously happy. Knowledge is almost positive proof that we cannot know. With it we are more puzzled than we were without it. The last word of science is 'wait.' What do we know? Moses went up to heaven, but God refused to be interviewed. The people, like the modern editor, insisted upon a story and so we have the Bible. But science and the higher criticism has interrupted our reading and spoiled the pleasure of it. What do we know? Even Professor Daniel De Leon does not know everything. Man asks questions, investigates, 'und ein Narr wartet auf Antwort.' Life contains more emptiness than anything else. Life is a long wait for that which does not come. Is life worth living? 'Tis not worthwhile asking the question."
"If that is so, or seems so," I hazarded the question, "then why be here?"
"Why, to see it all, to enjoy the tragedy," Keidansky answered with swift enthusiasm. "I would not advise my best friend to commit suicide. Such an exciting farce. What would life be, what would art be without the tragic elements in it? It's great! But I began to tell you why it is sometimes grossly immoral to live up to your highest principles, when my train of thought was wrecked. Some other time. Come, let's go into the other room and I'll introduce you to the players and to Comrade Cahan—if he is still alive."
XVI The Immorality of Principles
"Yes, I have promised to tell you why it is sometimes grossly immoral to live up to your highest principles. It was a rash promise, yet I shall try to make it good. And though it was several weeks ago, I am more than ever inclined to think the same way."