“Curse Stevenson for that ‘playing the sedulous ape,’ which has led so many thousands astray. It was Stevenson’s weakness, not his strength, that aping; and because of it his light is flickering, while that of his contemporaries, Rossetti, Hardy, Swinburne, Flaubert, who were not sedulous apes but men passionate about beauty or the curious ways of daily man, burns evenly and forever. Stevenson had an unequalled opportunity; he was a pioneer, with a pioneer’s chance to stake out the first claim; yet once Kipling galloped into sight, roaring at deft Stevensonian technique, irreverent and violent as one of his own Rajputs, doing really dreadful things to the balanced decencies of proportion and melody, he routed Stevenson in a handful of years ... and today we have read Stevenson, but we do read Kipling.
“Of course, of course, of course. ‘Freedom is no excuse for violence.’ ‘The young man must train his mind.’ ‘From a study of the elders youth learns to avoid their mistakes’ (but he doesn’t!). ‘Only the strong are able to govern themselves, to make their own codes of ethics or of beauty.’ All those sage warnings—used equally against Martin Luther and the Bolsheviks, against the bad boy in school and Rodin. Basically, the disagreement between classicists and modernists is temperamental, and will, under various guises, endure forever. Only, let it be clearly recognized for what it is; let the classicist not mistake himself for a modernist; let the innovator not suppose because O. Henry is still so living a force that his followers have not already hardened his technique into a form classic and very dead.”
THE WEAVER WHO CLAD THE SUMMER
Comment.—The death of Harris Merton Lyon gives added poignancy to the story whose idealism and inspiration made for it a place in the first of Mr. O’Brien’s collections. Judged by the test of Beauty, it is perhaps first on the list. The satisfaction vouchsafed each reader will be in proportion to his own Spirit of Work and his acceptance of the theme.
Theme. Since the Idea is foremost, it is quite fitting that it should be sounded early. The first approach is on page one (153, Yearbook) and in the form of a wonder as to what there could possibly be “in being a worker at the other, the evanescent thing.” The answer, or the satisfaction of the wonder, is given in the essential story, stripped of its covering, pages 158-170. The theme is emphasized, strongly, in the sentence on page 170: “You did the Work of your Hand!”
The Inner Story, which allegorically satisfies the questioner, is the beautifully tenuous tale of the Mariner. It is woven of words in a style perfectly to suggest the spirit of summer and the evanescence of her garments, yet underneath the light superstructure are the foundations of the short-story. The struggle of the weaver, Andy Gordon, was successfully repeated for forty years. He died, knowing that he had been “a master-worker in a fabric that immediately dissolved,” yet content. His death is the dénouement of the tale, just as the dialogue between the Voice and Andy (pages 159-161) forms the initial incident. What is the dramatic climax?
Presentation. Andy Gordon’s story is told in an Italian restaurant, Pigalle’s, over a poker table. The narrator is at first denominated the Ancient Mariner; eventually he proves to be the Andy Gordon of his tale. (See pages 158 and 171.) What new evaluation of the weaver’s story do you make after learning that Andy was a violinist? Had you guessed any part of the whole situation before reading to the dénouement of the enveloping story? The narrator of the external action is, presumably, the author himself, who uses the first person “I.”
Contrast, between the restaurant scene and character on the one hand and the summer scenes with Andy on the other, is the chief aid used to enhance the narrative. Point out particular examples of its operation.
Details. Division I emphasizes the character of the Mariner, at the same time it repeats the theme. (See above), in the words, “Sufficient unto eternity is the glory of the hour.” Why does the author give an entire division (III) to the lines: “Abruptly the old man left and went out into the snowy night. For there were tears in his eyes.”
What value has the reference to Bernhardt, page 153?