Page:The Dial (Volume 75).djvu/127



Y repeating over and over again some set lines from a poet, we find that they cease to be an illumination and become simply sheep jumping over the fence. A great deal of aesthetic rebellion has been based upon this simple principle. The brain had been lulled; the lines repeated themselves mechanically; when lo! some "colossal genius" came along to discover what had been going on, and a new generation set in.

Not only the message, but also the method, can lose its kick in this manner. Subjects become more recherché with the passing of time, and the antics of execution more strained. Until finally each artist must discover some remote virgin territory much as the engineer discovers another oil pocket. All sorts of inventions are brought in, the field is exploited, the vein is exhausted—art passes elsewhere. Huysmans is an especially poignant instance of this procedure which, waiving all connotations aside for the moment, we recognize as decadence. Les Soeurs Vâtard, A Vau l'Eau, A Rebours, Là-Bas, En Route, La Cathédrale—each one of these books is the discovery and the sucking dry of a territory. Like modern business, Huysmans' energy had to find new channels continually, or perish. This, then, is the distinguishing mark of a decadence: that each man has his own little corner; each man is his own John Jones and Company; each man hunts out his own spiritual markets.

Decadence is that stage in the history of art wherein nothing can be built upon anything preceding. There is nothing beyond A Rebours—there can only be something different. Similarly, Joyce's Ulysses marks the snapping of a contact. A second Joyce could merely prospect for the meagre watery oil which is left.

Decadence, then, leaves us with a choice between Ersatz and ''retour. Ersatz'' demands ingenuity, and there is much ingenious work being done. Retour means classicism. It is not unlikely that the next phase of European thought will be a classical era, a turn away from the recent religion of "pure creation." A classical era, roughly, is one which strives to organize what resources are at hand, rather than find new resources. And returning to the matter