COMMENT
WE are uncertain whether what we observe is a new New Hellenism or merely a higher Hellenism. The Greek spirit is, in any case, with us; and we are charmed.
The Greeks are supposed to have been lovers of beauty and of wisdom; indeed it may be their peculiar and happy character to have been able to love both. But, as an eminent philosopher once informed an undergraduate, their love of beauty would never have led them to tolerate, for a moment, such works of art as were dangerous to the state. Again it would seem that fortune was kind to them; except for peculations they found nothing in the Parthenon hostile to good government and the Established Church.
But if we can't all be happy, we can be active; and it is good to note that even in organizations which are avowedly unpolitical (yet we fancy that a Greek would not have understood "unpolitical" except as a term of reproach) there is a definite tendency to look jealously upon works of art and to discover whether the political organism may not deteriorate because of them. A hero writes a wicked book and it is moved and seconded that he should lose his medals; that is one of those famous first steps which count; we shall presently impeach a President for using too many loose sentences. The great thing for us is that all of the protests against art and letters, protests which fancy themselves purely moral, concede more than they withhold. They are abject in the presence of art—a nice position to maintain—and even if they overvalue the influence of art, acknowledge its legitimacy and its relevance to life.
It remains for the arts to do the handsome thing—and they are doing it. "Life" becomes the touchstone of literary endeavour—not "true to life" but "serving life" the standard of measurement. "Life" in these connexions means the present problem—not the eternal; and it will presently be improper, if not impossible, for a writer to concern himself with a theme which has no bearing on revolutions, applied psychology, or, in general, the moral and physical catastrophe which, we have been assured, impends.
Over Mr T. S. Eliot's initials there appear in the current number of The Criterion, some brief words on this subject:
