Page:The Theme of the Joseph Novels.djvu/14

 first volume of "Joseph and His Brothers," "The Stories of Jaacob," which forms the anthropological prelude to the whole work. Entitled "Descent into Hell" it is a fantastical essay which seems like the cumbersome preparation for a risky expedition—a journey down into the depths of the past, a trip to the 'mothers.' The overture was sixty-four pages long—that might have made me suspicious in regard to the proportions of the whole, and did so to a degree—especially as I had decided, that the personal story of Joseph alone would not do, but that the primeval and original story, the history of the world demanded to be included, at least in perspective. The stories of Jaacob filled a heavy volume: in mingled order, anticipating and reverting, I recited them, strangely entertained by the novelty of dealing with human beings who did not quite know who they were, or who knew it in a more pious, deeply exact way than the modern individual; beings whose identity was open in back and included the past with which they identified themselves, in whose steps they tread and which again became present through them. "Novarum rerum cupidus"—this characteristic fits the artist better than anyone else. Nobody is more bored than he by the old and worn out, and more impatient for the new, although nobody, on the other hand, is more bound to tradition than he is. Audacity in confinement, fulfillment of tradition with exciting news, that is really his calling and his business, and the conviction that "such a thing has not been done before" is the indispensable motor of all his industry. I have always needed this spurring conviction in order to accomplish anything, indeed, even to begin anything, and it seemed to me that I had never experienced it more strongly than this time. "The Stories of Jaacob" and their successor "The Young Joseph," were [10]