In these poems, as in other phases of his work, Browning runs the gamut of life, of art, and of thought. He has set a new standard in regard to the handling of classic material, one which should open the field of classic lore afresh to future poets. Instead of trying to ape in more or less ineffectual imitations the style and thought of the great masters of antiquity, or simply use their mythology as a well-spring of romance to be clothed in whatever vagaries of style the individual poet might be able to invent, the aim of the future poet should be to reconstruct the life and thought of that wonderful civilization. One playwright, at least, has made a step in the right direction. I refer to Gilbert Murray, whose classical scholarship has thrown so much light upon the vexed questions of Browning’s attitude toward Euripides, and who, in his “Andromache,” has written a play, not in classical, but in modern form, which seems to bring us more into touch with the life of Homer’s day than even Homer himself.
VII
PROPHETIC VISIONS
The division between centuries, though it be an arbitrary one, does actually appear to mark fairly definite steps in human development, and already there are indications that the twentieth century is taking on a character quite distinct from that of the nineteenth. It looks now as if it were to be the century of the realization of mankind’s wildest dreams in the past. Air navigation, the elixir of life, perpetual motion, are some of them. About the first no one can now have much skepticism, for if airships are not as yet common objects of the everyday sky, they, at least, occupy a large share of attention in the magazines, while the aviator, a being who did not exist in the last century, is now the hero of the hour.
With regard to the second, though no sparkling elixir distilled from some rare flower, such as that Septimius Felton sought in Hawthorne’s tale, has been discovered, the great scientist Metchnikoff has brought to light a preserver of youth more in keeping with the science of the day—namely, a microbe, possessing power to destroy the poison that produces age. Whether perpetual youth is to lead to immortality in the flesh will probably be a question for other centuries to discuss, though if Metchnikoff is right there is no reason why we should not retain our youthfulness all our lives in this century. Add to this, machinery run by the perpetual energy of radium—a possibility, if radium can ever be obtained in sufficient quantities to supply the needed power to keep modern civilization on its ceaseless “go”—and we may picture to ourselves, before the end of the twentieth century, youths of ninety starting forth on voyages of thirty years in radium ships, which, like the fairy watch of the Princess Rossetta, will never go wrong and will never need to be wound up, metaphorically speaking. It would almost seem as if some method of enlarging the earth, or of arranging voyages to the moon and Mars, would be necessary in order to give the new radium machinery sufficient scope for its activities. However, at present it seems unlikely that it will ever be possible to produce more than half an ounce of radium a year. As it would take a ton to run one ship for thirty years, and the expense would be something almost incalculable, it is a dream only to be realized by the inventing of methods by which the feeble radio-activity known to exist in many other substances can be utilized. These methods have not yet been invented, but it is a good deal that they have been thought of, for what man thinks of he generally seems to have the indomitable energy to accomplish.
How such inventions as these, even if very far from attaining success, may affect the social and thought ideals of the century it is impossible to say. The automobile is said to have brought about a change, not altogether beneficial, to the intellectual and artistic growth of society to-day. It has taken such powerful possession of the minds of humanity that homes have been mortgaged, music and books and pictures have been sacrificed, in order that all the money procurable could be put into the machines and their running. You hear complaints against the automobile from writers, musicians, and artists. The only thing that really has a good sale is the automobile. What effect rushing about so constantly at high speed in the open air is to have on the brain-power is another interesting problem. Perhaps it is this growing subjective delight in motion which is causing the development of an artistic taste dependent upon motion as its chief element. Motion pictures and dancing appeal to the public with such insistence that plays will not hold successfully without an almost exaggerated attention to action and dancing, which, whenever it is at all possible, make a part of the “show.”
The pictures of the new school of painters, the futurists, also reveal the craze for motion. They try to put into their pictures the successive and decidedly blurred impressions, from the illustrations I have seen, of scenes in motion, with a result that is certainly startling and interesting, but which it is difficult to believe is beautiful. One has a horrible suspicion that all this emphasis upon motion in art is a running to seed of the art which appeals to the eye and with a psychological content derived principally from sensation. Perhaps in some other century, fatuous humanity will like to listen to operas or to plays in a pitch-dark theatre. This will represent the going to seed of the art which appeals to the ear, and a psychological content derived principally from sentiment.
While movement seems to be the keynote of the century thus far, in its everyday life and in its art manifestation, very interesting developments are taking place in scientific theories and in philosophy, as well as in the world of education and sociology.